Of Desire and the Status Quo
by grumkinsnark
Summary: In the end, it's a complete accident that gets Dean Winchester out of Hell. SPN/DA crossover.
1. Author's Notes

**Of Desire and the Status Quo**

_**Author's Notes

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**_

Evidently, as someone very kindly informed me, you're not supposed to upload an Author's Note as a separate chapter, even though my sole reason for this is because it's quite plainly too long to be combined with an actual story chapter, and would take away from the flow of it. Due to this, and to the fact that I can't simply delete these notes (I'm predicting I'd get lots of questions or comments about the various attributes of how _Dark Angel_ and _Supernatural_ fit together), I'm just going to put the intro to the story at the end of this. Presumably, that'll count as "containing story content." Thanks, and if you share my immense annoyance to this rule, I apologize for the inconvenience.

Now, I shall move on to what the author's note was originally just _supposed_ to be.

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**Preliminary notes:** Because I have most chapters done, I plan on updating every Friday, with all intention before 9 p.m. Eastern time, in honor of _Supernatural_ episodes airing. That said, it'd be very nice to hear what you have to say about the story itself, whether it's about the plot, or if you think I've got the characters right, what have you. Any feedback is appreciated. Now onto the notes about the actual story.

**Photos:** As the story progresses, I'll be putting up pictures of each of the characters, which you can view here: www(dot)flickr(dot)com/photos/40075795(at)N07/sets/

**Rating:** R. Primarily for language, and some memories of torture-type stuff that'll pop up. Case in point: in terms of swearing, at least Dean- (and probably Alec-) wise, watch the _Supernatural_ episode "Ghostfacers." It should tell you all you need to know.

**Timeline:** Takes place about five weeks after the _Dark Angel_ finale ("Freak Nation," I'm going with the Jam Pony siege taking place on May 7, 2021), and approximately 13 years after the _Supernatural_ season three finale ("No Rest for the Wicked").

**Spoilers:** Very few. Well, the two seasons (more of season two than season one, though) of _Dark Angel_, and up to 3.16 of _Supernatural_. Seasons four and five of _Supernatural_ are pretty much moot; however, there may be some events or facts alluded to as, for example, hunts that Sam may have gone on or info about the boys that may appear in those seasons, but things like how long/what happened to Dean in Hell will be altered a bit.

Nothing huge, though, and while there will be specific episodes of _Supernatural_ that I advert to, won't be mandatory to watch in order to get the story. Same goes for the _Dark Angel_ episodes, although those won't be as many/necessary, just because there's mainly just general info.

_I am, for the most part, also disregarding the Dark Angel novels, chiefly because a) I haven't read them, and b) I've heard they're in the same vein as "Freak Nation," which was nothing like where the rest of the second season was going, so._

**Pairings:** None, although I personally have a very strong suspicion that Max and Alec would've gotten together at some point (I say that last part because they're both immensely stubborn), so there may be some subtle leanings towards that, but this is not an M/A story, and even though Logan isn't my favorite person, there is no bashing of him except the usual of Alec's. Logan is also fair game for Dean, for obvious reasons.

**Ages:** Just to head off anyone who intends to say something about ages in this, the ages of the characters, at least in this story, are as follows…

Max Guevara/X5-452: 21 (2000)

Alec McDowell/X5-494: 22 (May 7, 1999)

Dean Winchester: 29 (that's the age he physically looks; his "real" age is addressed in Chapter 1; birthday is January 24, 1979)

Sam Winchester: 38 (May 2, 1983)

Logan Cale: 33 (November 11, 1988)

Original Cindy McEachin: 23 (February 1998; this is a complete guess on my part)

Dr. Sam Carr: 43 (August 1977; again, I'm guessing, since I don't believe it was ever said how old Carr is, so I'm going by how old Brian Markinson (the actor who played him) appeared. Feel free to discuss it, but that's what I'm going with.)

So in terms of age the public can see, Sam is older, but Dean actually is, just as he's always been. I tried to keep ages as close to what they would be, given the crossover. Most importantly, this isn't a story where the characters from _Dark Angel_ and the characters from _Supernatural_ are all almost the same age. 'Cause, you know, they're not.

*Information on _Dark Angel_ dates and such is taken mainly from here: alec494(dot)egoism(dot)jp/history/MH(dot)htm

The people who wrote it evidently gathered it all from the _Dark Angel_ books, dossier, etc., so I'm trusting that. If you disagree, I'm curious to know why/on what.

*Information on _Supernatural_ dates and such is taken both from my knowledge/observations of the series, and here: www(dot)supernaturalwiki(dot)com/

**Last note:** The mine explosion that Sam is investigating in Chapter 1 actually did happen, on June 10, 1901 at the Port Royal Mine of Pittsburg Coal Company, in Port Royal, Pennsylvania. Sixteen men died, eleven entombed, and three bodies were recovered, although two of the injured died. The first explosion was at 6:30 and got four men working the night shift; the others tried to recover the bodies of those four men, but unfortunately didn't survive.

*Taken from: www(dot)gendisasters(dot)com/data1/pa/mines/portroyale-mineexp-jun1901(dot)htm

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Snippet of story (as per irking website requirement referenced above):

_June 10, 2021_

In the end, it's a complete and total accident that gets Dean Winchester out of Hell.

In the end, Sam Winchester is twenty-six hundred miles away in Port Royal, Pennsylvania, investigating a multiple haunting taking place in a mine, an explosion that had apparently occurred exactly a hundred years ago.

In the end, it's three a.m. and Max Guevara and Alec McDowell are fighting over who gets to take point on the next of Logan's Eyes Only missions, childishly in Mole's opinion.

In the end, Ames White and his group of Familiars have just finished reciting a full three pages of Latin—something to prepare for their brand of Apocalypse—never the wiser that they just unleashed one of Hell's most loved and hated denizens. (Loved, because Dean had exorcised many a demon, and all were out for his blood, so when he entered Hell, well, torturing him was their recess; hated, because even trapped for eternity in the Underworld, tortured twenty-four/seven with no way out, Dean could still piss them off to the point where they wished he'd be able to leave Hell if nothing else than to spare them the constant irritation.)

In the end, an X5 who worked in Manticore's Psy Ops and now lives in one of Terminal City's run-down apartments wakes with a start, sweat streaming down her back, Alec's face covered in blood and soot clouding her vision. But that can't be right—Alec is just a few buildings over and perfectly okay. X5-685 chalks it up to her taxed brain mixing settings and goes back to sleep, not knowing her vision is real.

* * *

I think that's it. Please proceed to Chapter 1 now, and just keep these notes in the back of your mind. Thank you very much for reading, and, again, please let me know what you think, or simply any questions, comments, or suggestions you may have.

— written in dreams, ©2009


	2. Chapter I: Normal

A/N: Same stuff applies as in the Author's Notes chapter. Oh, and unfortunately I neither own _Supernatural_ nor _Dark Angel_. Just this.

A/N part two: Specific episodes mentioned of _Supernatural_ are: "Pilot," "Skin," "Hollywood Babylon," "What Is and What Should Never Be," "All Hell Breaks Loose, Part I," "The Kids Are Alright," and "Heaven and Hell." Specific episodes of _Dark Angel_ mentioned are: none.

* * *

**Of Desire and the Status Quo**

_**Chapter I: Normal

* * *

**_

_June 10, 2021_

In the end, it's a complete and total accident that gets Dean Winchester out of Hell.

In the end, Sam Winchester is twenty-six hundred miles away in Port Royal, Pennsylvania, investigating a multiple haunting taking place in a mine, an explosion that had, he discovers, occurred exactly a hundred years ago.

In the end, it's three a.m. and Max Guevara and Alec McDowell are fighting over who gets to take point on the next of Logan's Eyes Only missions, childishly in Mole's opinion.

In the end, Ames White and his group of Familiars have just finished reciting a full three pages of Latin—something to prepare for their brand of Apocalypse—never the wiser that they just unleashed one of Hell's most loved and hated denizens. (Loved, because Dean had exorcised many a demon, and all were out for his blood, so when he entered Hell…well, torturing him was their recess; hated, because even trapped for eternity in the Underworld, sliced and carved twenty-four/seven with no way out, Dean could _still_ piss them off to the point where they wished he'd be let out, if only to spare them the constant irritation.)

In the end, an X5 who worked in Manticore's Psy Ops and now lives in one of Terminal City's rundown apartments wakes with a start, sweat streaming down her back, Alec's face covered in blood and soot clouding her vision. But that can't be right—Alec is just a few buildings over and perfectly okay. X5-685 chalks it up to her taxed brain mixing settings and goes back to sleep, not knowing her vision is real.

* * *

To say Dean is tired would be the biggest fucking understatement in the history of the world. He'd thought he'd been tired before, but this? Made those other times feel like he was swaddled in cloud candy. His fatigue is not bone-deep, but even deeper, dribbling into all of his being, into his soul, or whatever is left of it. His head feels like Sammy's—where _is _Sam?—did when he used to have his intense premonitions. Like the time _Dean_ had gotten Andy's telepathic _Get-your-ass-over-here-now! _message. His lungs feel punctured, his stomach feels like it's been shot with JHP hollow-points, his eyes feel like sandpaper, his very skeleton feels sawn and brittle, his skin feels tight and gaunt, seared and torn all over.

Funny, that's what Dean has felt like ever since the end of that first day in Hell. Which had to be…well, somewhere around over fifteen hundred years ago. (Dean counted. Anything to help keep his mind away from the sizzling of his own flesh on an entrails-fueled fire.) To be more specific, one thousand, five hundred-sixty years in Hell.

'Course, he'd only found that out once he got down there and they decided to throw in psychological torture with the physical, that one month on Earth was equivalent to ten years in Hell. _That _day had sucked major ass. Especially because it meant he was that much more worried about his own sanity; he knew Sam would look for a way to spring him from the Pit, but it just meant Dean would be waiting a hell of a lot longer—pun _so_ fucking intended—than Sam would.

The second thing he notices, after the whole I-feel-like-I'm-dying-_again_ thing, is that he's definitely not where he's spent the last four hundred or so years. Another part of Hell's psych torture was presenting him with false scenes of Sam getting him out of Hell only a little the worse for wear, and then the bastards would rip it away through various violent means. Many of which included Sam getting ripped to pieces or some such, Dean left alone again. And then they'd yank him back to the rack and he'd realize it was all a nightmare within an even larger, real nightmare.

But after a few centuries or so of this, Dean began to realize that, oh wait, the demons would keep trying this crap until his mind broke. Unfortunately for them, they'd underestimated his stubbornness. They'd thought that John's stonewalling was legendary…ha. They'd not encountered Dean's. If anyone in the universe embodies the definition of obstinate and intractable, it's Dean Winchester.

Anyone who knows him well—namely Sam—would say, even under threat of ass kicking, that Dean has a heart of gold and would go to the ends of the Earth to save even a stranger if he had to. But he didn't live with mediating between John and Sam (not to mention dealing with John's hidden and angry depression after Sam left, and Sam's Eeyore personality) without gaining an iron will when he needed to use it. Okay, so he didn't think he'd have to use it just to maintain a fragment of sanity while being sliced and diced in fucking _Hell_, but then again, life's a cruel bitch that way.

No one's said demons don't catch on eventually, though. And once they acknowledged that, hmm, this Dean guy's not giving into that brand of torture, they went with a different tactic. And although they returned to the physical torture with a newfound vengeance—_Christ_, despite the fact that Dean's body went more or less back to its original state every "day," he's still uncertain that _that_ part of his anatomy returned to normal after one particular torture session—they coupled it with a little isolation here, a little more alternate reality there, what have you. Until Dean was crying out in pain as well as screaming the kinds of screams he didn't think at all sounded like him but couldn't be anyone else.

But Dean wouldn't break. He couldn't. As long as he held onto that shred of hope—hope? _Dean_? Yeah, he hardly believed it either—that his baby brother Sammy would swoop in and rescue him, he was sure he could maintain his mind. And as much as Dean appreciated, and knew other people appreciated, his body, his mind was the thing he treasured most. Almost equal with Sam. After all, Dean didn't average a full one sixty-two on those few I.Q. tests John once gave to him and his brother for nothing. (Sam averaged one forty-five, Dean remembers.)

There were a few days back then where tensions were high, once John recognized the certainty that Dean would be admitted to any university in the country if he so chose. In at least one way it was a good thing when Sam voiced his desires to go to college and Dean stayed silent. Winchesters were good at that restraining "unreasonable" aspirations thing. Dean didn't say anything about his intelligence or schooling unless it was derisive or jibes at Sam; and John never mentioned those acceptance letters from schools like Yale, UCLA, Brown, and Boston College that bore Dean's name and a vigorous "Please come here, we'd love to have you" from important sounding officials, letters Dean had definitely read and not crumpled, but had forgotten to completely hide underneath his smokescreen of porno mags and spare Bowie knives.

Which had made John wonder: how had Dean managed to portray himself as such a slacker and delinquent to the point where his schools would track down his father just to scold him, if Dean was able to get high enough marks and test scores (John'd had no idea when Dean had managed to take the SAT, but he'd gotten a nearly perfect score despite everything) to get into the freakin' Ivy Leagues? Talk about teaching his sons all sorts of tricks backfiring on him. Leading an academic double life was practically nothing compared to the kinds of paperwork gymnastics Dean'd have had to have performed in order to apply with his real name and everything and yet keep his identity a secret.

That was part of the reason, John'd reluctantly allowed, that he was so hurt after Sam left. It wasn't just his youngest son that walked out; it was a part of Dean, a part of Dean that, in all likelihood, would have been pursued had Sam not stormed away first. In truth, Sam himself had thought the exact same thing that day so long ago when the thing that had Dean's face but wasn't Dean snarled, _He's sure got issues with you. You got to go to college, he had to stay home. I mean, _I _had to stay home. With Dad. You didn't think I had dreams of my own? But Dad needed me. Where the hell were you?_

Sam, of course, couldn't answer any of those questions, and honestly, he'd been so hung up on Jessica and wanting to find John that he hadn't lent the questions much thought. Not till much later, and by that time, even if he _were _able to come up with a way to broach the topic, there was no possibility that Dean would give him a straight answer.

That was the worst of it. That Dean had so wanted to lead a normal life—arguably more than Sam even—and go to a college that his higher-than-normal intelligence could get him into, and yet he'd never, _ever_ admit it, not even to himself. Sam wouldn't trade road tripping with Dean for the world (okay, maybe he would, if it meant Dean wouldn't have gone to Hell), but living with knowing that deep down Dean probably resented not only his missed opportunities, but also his brother just a little, was Hell for Sam, too. (_Me, I know I'm a freak. And sooner or later, everybody's gonna leave me._)

That's all moot at this point, though, and it isn't like Dean knows what Sam and John had thought anyway. No, at this point, Dean is feeling like he spent almost two millennia in the Pit, and he knows, in a way he can't quite describe, that he's not in Kansas anymore. (Were Kansas fire, brimstone, and scalding knives, that is.) Maybe it's the dank, dark, wooden ceiling that smells of real must, or the vague hints of real sunlight filtering through little mouse holes on the ground, or…wait...voices. Like…_people_ voices. Not the ichor-laden hissings of demons and Hellhounds, but real, resonating, articulating voices of men and women. Granted, they aren't speaking English, they're speaking the Latin that Dean's been fluent in since age eleven, but he can still tell they're human.

And it's that fact that causes Dean to dare to think that maybe, _maybe_, _maybe_, he's not in Hell. That _somehow_ he busted free. Maybe someone opened the Devil's Gate again and he stumbled out (because John had climbed valiantly, but Dean being Dean, would be the kind of person who'd _amble_, yet smirk and crack a one-liner like he's friggin' John Dillinger before passing out face first. Then Sam'd take him purposefully to a hospital without hot nurses just in case, you know, Hell wasn't enough). Or maybe Sam had made a bet with an evil son of a bitch and the being had lost. Or maybe Sam had made a deal…

No. Dean won't go there. He _won't_. He casts that idea away from him, as well as the reeling he's doing over the steadily becoming truer prospect that he's not Lilith's dolly anymore, because neither of those will aid him now. Now, he needs to focus. He takes silent stock of his body once more, and to his shock realizes that he's not got a scratch on him, least not that he can detect. Perhaps that rock digging right into his spinal cord is a wee bit pesky, but overall, no breaks, no bruises, none of the slightly ridged scars he could sometimes feel when he moved a certain way.

Moreover, he appears to be exactly like right before he'd died. Which, in retrospect, he should have thought makes sense, considering the demons would get more satisfaction out of making a youthful man cry than a geriatric one, but then, the guy does deserve a break. Regardless, he can't say he's not the very smallest bit glad that, in all physicality, he's back to being twenty-nine again. From now on, he vows, he'll never complain about getting older, or let anyone annoy him with it, again. And just for that, the first thing he's going to do once he gets all re-calibrated, is get a double bacon cheeseburger. Extra onions.

Next, he concentrates on the voices he'd been so psyched—all right, maybe _psyched_ isn't quite the word, but whatever—to hear. He hasn't heard Latin in more than half a millennium, and then it was only some sort of spell to hurt Dean even more, but languages have a tendency to stick with you. And when he deciphers enough of what they're chanting, a small chill runs through his body.

This isn't your everyday, joke shop Latin that some band of teenagers decided would be cool to recite, just because. This is the real deal. And Dean has a sudden flashback to that case he and Sam had worked back in Los Angeles; only that was a movie set, and Dean senses this isn't exactly the same.

In any event, he doesn't like this. Which totally goes along with his luck. Or lack thereof. Since when has anything in his life gone right? Figures that the moment he finds out he's escaped Hell, he's placed smack dab in the middle of some sort of summoning ritual…or maybe it's a deity worshipping…_either way_, not daisies and puppies, that's for damn sure. And they're saying something about snakes. Dean hates snakes.

He decides to try moving. His bones creak inside him, his muscles intact but feeling atrophied, and he wishes he had some water. Just a drop or two would be great. But no, the best new news he has at the moment is that he's hidden behind a stack of crates, and he stifles a groan as he gets on his knees and peers through two boxes. He's glad that, however he got out, he's able to wear airy attire; all he sports is his green t-shirt, jeans, and cropped hair, which means he doesn't feel the solid heat of the warehouse as badly. He's had quite enough heat to last, oh, about twenty-one lifetimes, thank you very much.

Not so much can be said about the group of people spouting Latin. They are dressed all in dark, blood-red, heavy cloaks, like they're from freaking _Harry Potter_ or something, and, to Dean's dismay, have a good number of big-ass serpents hanging around. He just hopes they don't smell him or what the fuck ever. The last thing he needs is a snake snarling and clawing after him. Shut up, snakes totally snarl and claw, they _do_.

Dean decides now is the time that, were this a script, his cue would read "Dean Winchester exitstage left." He looks around and, all right fine, maybe he does have one last stroke of good luck, because he finds that there's a door a few feet from him that is ajar. The wood looks rotten, and even though the hinges look as if they're made solely from ferrous oxide, they don't appear to be ones that squeak like trapped rats.

So, with one last shuddering glance at the conglomeration of wizard freaks (or whoever they are, Dean really doesn't want to stick around and find out), and with more grace than he thinks he had, he silently creeps across the dusty floor, seeking shadows, and makes his way to the door. One of those damn snakes looks at him, beady eyes calculating, forked tongue flicking out, but it doesn't seem to be able to speak—hey, after what Dean's seen, he wouldn't put that past it—and none of the humans pay attention, so he steps through the door.

Like he'd suspected, it doesn't creak, and Dean finds himself in an alleyway. It's frankly rather putrid, though not much compared to some of the things Dean's viewed and been forced upon him (that decade was totally disgusting, Dean would be more than happy to not relive it. Ever). Puddles line the burgundy brick, filled with particles Dean doesn't want to contemplate, and there's a few cardboard boxes scattered around, what looks like a tattered pair of slacks hanging off one of them.

Satisfied there's no immediate threat (yeah, like he'd be able to defend himself anyway. He's about as intimidating right now as a runt cockapoo), Dean starts walking away from the warehouse, the alleyway leading into some abandoned parking lot. He's far enough away from the freakish robed people that he dares to look up. And there's…

The sky.

It's gray, watery, and filled with large rain clouds that oppress everything around them, but it's the most beautiful sight Dean's ever seen.

It's…it's _the sky_. Dean hardly ventures to hope that that muted ball of light behind one of the clouds is the _sun_. Because if it's really _the sun_, then that means it's bright and yellow, and not a sparking red. Hell had a sun, you see, but it seemed old to Dean, old and weary and tortured by Hell's denizens just like Dean was. Like it'd given up and all that was left was a crimson half-circle, the massive star stalled in a gruesome version of a sunset. It screeched hate and horror, and Dean never wanted to look at it.

But this one…well, this one is young and happy and _real_, and Dean, of all things, starts to laugh.

His voice is barely more than a whisper, what with his vocal cords not having been used in over a thousand years apart from shrieks, and it's to be honest rather maniacal, but Dean just laughs and laughs and laughs and laughs until he's afraid he's going to burst. But then he looks at the quicksilver sky again and he falls to the slimy ground and nearly kisses it, but is too busy with a new wave of laughter. He feels tears start to fall, tears of mirth, and then his body betrays him.

The tears of mirth turn into tears of pure, raw, sheer _pain_. And they're not like Dean's laughter, they don't seem to have an end in sight. Dean feels the salty, acidic water make tracks down his face, knows there is a well buried deep within his core, sapping whatever few emotions he has left and hauling them up, up, up.

Dean cries for being in Hell. For all the centuries he didn't let himself cry until the demons went for the tear ducts directly. For all the centuries he couldn't do anything but watch as his fingernails were dragged out of his nail beds one by one, slowly. For all the centuries he had to watch other souls being tortured, that one young woman who appeared so innocent and alluring and remorseful Dean wanted to look away as her hair was ripped out and her body was filleted, but the demons forced him to stare. For all the centuries he wished he could tell people he loved them before he went to Hell. For all the centuries he bereaved the millions of opportunities he'd had in the past but chose not to act on them; like Lisa, who he knew in his heart had lied to him about being Ben's father and with whom he knew he could've had a life; or Ruby, whom he could've killed when he had the chances (he'd found out she was a lying bitch who'd played them like fiddles, and who knows where she is now); or Mom, to whom he'd never said _I love you_ often enough (and, goddamn it, why didn't he say it when they'd gone back to Lawrence, or even when the djinn had fucked with his head?), or Sammy and Dad, to whom he'd _never_ said it, as far as he can remember.

Dean cries for Sammy. He wishes he could've stayed in contact with his brother those many years ago, John's shouts of _Your brother made his fucking choice, Dean, he chose to leave, now leave him, that's an order_ be fucked. He wishes he'd lied about a hunt taking a week when he could've said it took two and driven to Palo Alto and said, _Sammy, I'm sorry. Forgive me. You've _got_ to forgive me, Sammy. Oh, is this Jessica? She's beautiful, Sam, she really is. Look, I understand if you don't want me in your life, but God, Sammy, just forgive me, __please_, but he didn't. He wishes he'd waited a few days until he broke into Sam and Jess's apartment; wishes Sam could have proposed, because Sam had told him once that the day Dean ruined his life, he planned on asking Jess to spend forever with him. And, God help him, he wants a sister-in-law. Much as he loves Sam, he's always thought having a sister would be nice.

Dean cries for his childhood. For Mom dying when he was only four and barely able to cling to her memory. For Mom dying when Sam was only six months old and _unable_ to cling to her memory. For Dad going on his blind crusade for death and destruction to a nemesis he'd named freakin' _Yellow Eyes_, for Christ's sake. (What kind of name is that?) For Dad dragging his still-says-"rabbit"-with-a-"w" and can't-do-more-than-gurgle sons along, leaving them in motel rooms where they could get kidnapped, taken by CPS, or get fucking tetanus and John wouldn't know because he's unconscious somewhere in Nowhere, Tennessee, and Dean and Sam are in Nowhere, Virginia. For Bobby acting as babysitter—Bobby denies it of course—with puppy Rumsfeld knocking baby Sam onto the rug, forced to abandon his quiet semi-retirement of hunting to care for two kids he'd more likely feed beer and Doritos than vegetables for Dean and mashed peaches for Sam, while their daddy went to kill what he thought was a spirit but turned out to be a poltergeist and came back with a mangled leg that put him in ICU for a week. For Dean having to act like a father, mother, and brother for Sammy, as well as a son and hunter for John, which meant he took fifty times more guilt and responsibility than any adult would dream of. For his childhood that was completely and utterly nonexistent.

But most of all, Dean cries for the future he could have had. Fuck it, he wishes he'd never met that stupid djinn, never got that glimpse of what life could have been. He hates _ifs, ands, _and_ buts_, and yet that alternate reality? There are no words for how much he wanted to stay. He'd told Sam he did, but…Sam had no idea, he _didn't_. He didn't know how, with even one single extra word from Mom, or Sammy, or Carmen, or Jess, Dean would drop the knife and collapse to his knees, and Mom would come over and cradle him in her arms like he was four again, not twenty-eight, and Dean would sob, but no one would care.

Mom would _shh_ him, and maybe sing that song Dean's never forgotten—it's "Tomorrow," from some musical, and Mom always said the sun would come out when Dean woke up (but the day after she dies, Dean remembers there was the worst thunderstorm in the Midwest in forty years) and he knows all the words, but he's never told Sam, because if he does, Mom's voice'll fade away—no matter how much Metallica he plays. And Mom would hold him for however long it took for Dean to stop crying, and then she'd hold him till he fell asleep, and she'd let him sleep at home; then Carmen would pull up a chair next to the couch, and she would rest close to him, but not hold him yet, because that was Mom's job.

Not that Dean would be helpless: he'd have a good job, and he knows he'd be a great dad. Carmen wouldn't be Lisa, and he wouldn't have Ben, but he thinks that'd be okay. He'd want a girl and a boy, he thinks, and maybe name them Mary and Sam, but he's not sure, because Dean wouldn't hear the end of it from his brother. (Maybe a middle name, then.) Dean can't have that future, though, 'cause John only saw Mary, and he didn't see his sons, didn't see that Dean wanted—wants—a normal family, more than anything in the whole world. John took it away, and though Dean's world _is_ hunting, his _soul_ is written with _normal_, and _safe_, and _love_, and _family_, and _grow old together_, and, more importantly, no_ hurt_, no_ death_, no_ pain_, no_ hunting_.

And then the sky opens up, and he's huddled against that brick wall, and he feels like the raindrops are his own tears, like the tears on his face aren't enough to show how much he hurts. Like maybe _this_ is like what Hell was supposed to make him feel. Then he realizes:

Dean wants normal, but normal doesn't want Dean.


	3. Chapter II: Sixth Sense

A/N: Same stuff applies as in the Author's Notes chapter. Oh, and unfortunately I neither own _Supernatural_ nor _Dark Angel_. Just this.

A/N part two: All of the information regarding Sam and Dean is accurate according to the episodes "The Benders," "The Usual Suspects," and "Folsom Prison Blues." Other specific episodes of _Supernatural_ are: "Route 666," "Salvation," "Nightshifter," "All Hell Breaks Loose, Part I," "The Magnificent Seven," "Dream a Little Dream of Me," "Long-Distance Call," and "No Rest for the Wicked." Specific episodes of _Dark Angel_ mentioned are: "The Berrisford Agenda," and "Hello, Goodbye."

A/N part three: Go here: http:/www(dot)flickr(dot)com/photos/40075795(at)N07/sets/72157620891780750/ for screenshots of the reports, in order, mentioned later in this chapter. Remember to change the symbol words into their respective symbols.

* * *

**Of Desire and the Status Quo**

_**Chapter II: Sixth Sense

* * *

**_

_A knife comes at the unsuspecting man who holds his arm like it's hurt. "Sam, watch out!" a voice yells, and then the knife stabs and cuts the spinal cord, you can tell. The man is already almost dead, can't even scream. "NO!" the voice shrieks, dropping a shotgun and sprinting towards the dead man. He gives the same litany over and over—"I'm gonna take care of you," "Sam? SAM!"—but the other man's body is broken._

"_How could you make that deal, Dean?" "'Cause I couldn't live with you dead, couldn't do it."_

"_I didn't deserve all he put on me! And I don't deserve to go to Hell!"_

"_I'm staring down the barrel at this thing. You know, Hell, for real, forever. I'm scared, Sam. I'm really scared."_

"_No…no…Dean…" Fires of Hell, meat hooks searing skin, life pouring away—sometimes literally—but comes back again, this time it's koummyas coming towards the tongue…_

Alec screams himself awake. He still feels blindingly white-hot heat over his entire body, wants to reach up and rub his shoulder where the muscle was carved into. He feels like crying, and doesn't know why. Goddamn it, he hasn't cried since Rachel, and he swore to himself he'd never show that weakness again.

He has had nightmares before. But never like this. This felt like he'd lived it before. Not like he had. With all the training Manticore gave, it wasn't like he'd even have _time_ to go to Hell.

He's alerted to another presence once he hears a small pile of books slam to the ground. "Damn," is muttered, and Alec looks over. It takes a second to register that it's Max. Right, the Max who makes his life a living Hell. Alec winces. Okay, wrong choice of words there.

Max glares at him, probably to blame him for her dropping the papers, but her mouth snaps shut, her eyebrows immediately creasing when she sees Alec's face. It's the same handsome flawlessness—Max tries somewhat unsuccessfully with a sneer and a snide comment to ignore that every single day—but overwritten by an odd mixture of grief, pain, and pure confusion. It's emotions she's never seen Alec wear before. She internally scowls when she acknowledges that he's probably experienced them in the past, but never let her see.

"Alec?" she ventures. Her voice is still bitchy. Good. She can do concern, but she just doesn't do empathy. And plus, this is Alec.

Alec doesn't respond. Max practically looks out the window and expects to see the sky raining fire because surely the Apocalypse has started. But the sky's the same gunmetal gray, which means that unless the rain has turned to hydrofluoric acid, there is something _seriously_ wrong with her second-in-command. Which is still a really weird title to think about for the guy whose previous epithet was thorn-in-her-ass.

She chucks her pen at his head, and it hits its mark. "Alec!" she says again, her voice irritated now. Better irritation than oh-God-he's-breaking-down. "What's your glitch?"

"Huh?" Alec says, disoriented. He catches Max's stare, and she watches—literally _sees_—his expression go from that weird concoction to perfectly blank, a white canvas that he abruptly paints with rainbow colors; Max can't help but draw on what Joshua had once said. _Outside, lots of pretty colors, lots of tricks and treats. Inside, darkness. Confusion. Alec._ The thought is uncomfortable, and she wishes she didn't have a photographic (and phonographic) memory. "Sorry. Dozed off. What was I in trouble for again?"

Max sighs, suddenly wanting half a bottle of painkillers. But she barely has access to Advil, let alone more hardcore stuff like Vicodin, Valium, or Oxycontin. Not that she's picky.

"You're not in trouble, Alec," she says, the _yet_ invisibly tacked on at the end. "You were having an intense dream or nightmare or whatever. It better not be anything important you have to work out. Gotta have you sharp. There's that supply run we're supposed to take tomorrow night, you know."

She's given a grin, a crooked smirk that generally charms all the girls and gets him into whatever establishment he needs to infiltrate. Max, on the other hand, has known him long enough to where her enhanced eyesight and recall associate that particular smile—slightly different than the one Alec _actually_ uses for the girls, and also different than the one when he isn't really feeling amiable, where his mouth would tighten, his shoulders would stiffen, and she has to jab the pressure point in his back to get him to wind down—to the one where he's worlds away from okay. The last time she'd seen it, it'd been after he had very, _very_ nearly gotten the pristine Berrisford walls wallpapered with his gray matter. And the one she imagines he'd worn after Psy Ops.

Which means that no level of prying, a skill she prides herself on, would allow Alec to tell her what got him so spun. It'd had to be killer, bearing in mind that before he'd fallen asleep (he accused her of having no heart, but come on, all scrunched up on the dilapidated couch, face oddly innocent, made him look like a kid and not the wily smartass he usually was; he was almost _purring_, she can't be blamed for tossing a blanket over him, come on now) he'd been as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as ever, and now he looks like a fifteen years older, PTSD war veteran. She doesn't like the former Alec, but she is damn sure she likes the latter one way less.

"Got it, boss," Alec retorts, giving her a sarcastic salute. When he notices the blanket, all he does is cock an eyebrow at her.

She shrugs. "It was already on the couch, you pulled it over you. What, you don't remember?"

The corner of Alec's mouth lifts, a genuine one this time, but he doesn't say anything, doesn't call her out on her lie. Max takes that as a thanks slash I _knew_ you didn't hate me. She turns purposefully back to her paperwork, and Alec's quiet for a minute before he sets the pen she'd used as a missile back on her desk, along with draping the blanket over her shoulders. It's a curiously sentimental gesture, if timely because her office is uncomfortably chilly, and she frowns at his retreating back.

"I'll just go get those finance reports from Command," Alec announces softly. His green eyes are dark, shadowed, and Max is now a hundred percent sure he's in deep shit just from that nightmare. She exhales heavily again, and pulls the blanket tighter around her, which now smells of what Alec usually does—gun oil, sweat, and worn leather—and tries to concentrate on the blueprints of the medical facility.

But all she can see is Alec's thrashing form (he'd socked her in the face without waking up, and she knows a shiner is coming her way), and his straining, suddenly deeper and huskier voice moaning _SAM!_ and then, _'Cause I couldn't live with you dead_. What the fucking hell they meant Max has about as much idea as why Alec is sticking around in the first place. That is to say, none whatsoever.

Fuck.

* * *

It could have been hours, or it could have been minutes until Dean starts to feel only raindrops on his face. The soaked sky doesn't show much in the way of time passing. Dean didn't notice whether anyone strolled by him, but he figures either they simply ignored him, mistaking him for some random vagrant (which, okay, maybe he does look a little…disheveled, and maybe he doesn't really have a home, but he isn't a _vagrant_), or there really wasn't anyone. Dean's not sure which is worse.

What he _is_ sure about, though, is that if he doesn't get out of the weather, he's going to die of pneumonia. And wouldn't that just be a kick in the head. He survives (by some way he has no freakin' idea) Hell, but succumbs to bacteria. There's some irony that Dean would really rather not come to fruition.

So he stands up to the best of his ability, more like stumbles in the general vertical direction, and seeks support in the brick wall. His clothes are drenched past waterlogged, and he feels small puddles in the bottom of his boots. His _leather_ boots, which makes him sigh, given how completely craptastic wetness is for leather. Brushing it aside for the moment, he looks around, trying to get his bearings.

He's a little disconcerted—almost _more_ disconcerted than just having sprung from Hell, surprisingly—at the sight that awaits him. It looks like something out of _Independence Day_, what with the buildings looking so decrepit he wonders just how many of them are inhabited and how many have been foreclosed or simply shut down out of neglect. The streets are littered with debris and grime, and the peeling sign left over from the obviously long since unoccupied structure next to him reads "Safeway," a grocery store that Dean's been to before and never thought would close.

With a frown that he wishes didn't feel so familiar, Dean squints through the driving rain at the city's pseudo-skyline. And when he notices a particular monument, his eyes widen. It's the Space Needle, Dean's been to Seattle enough times to know that, but it doesn't _look_ like the Space Needle. It's all ramshackle and crumbling, and Dean sees no lights on where the rotating restaurant should be.

"What the fuck?" he says to himself. Or tries to say; really, it's more of a croak, but Dean knows it's what he _would_ say if his vocal cords would just get their damn act together.

He then calculates just how long it's been since he went Downstairs. His mind's a little labored at the moment, but it doesn't take too long for him to work out that it's been a little over thirteen years here on planet Earth. God, if only he'd been in Hell for a mere thirteen years. That would've been like fucking paradise.

But really, thirteen years isn't enough to cause this much destruction in a major city like Seattle…is it? Sure, maybe if it were some scrawny town in rural North Carolina or wherever, but _Seattle_?

_Oh, God, _Dean thinks with a jolt, _please tell me this isn't another mind fuck._

After so long, Dean learned not to underestimate the imaginations of Hell's minions. Those suckers had _creativity_. But…this? In the past, all of the false returns that Hell had presented to Dean felt a little off, not quite like the djinn's reality, but not quite tangible, either. Dean'd passed it off as a shock to his system going from Hell to Earth, but then after a while he began to notice the visions always felt the same, that little not-quite-right feeling. This, on the other hand, feels legit. He _has_ to be actually living this. No way could even Hell create such a vivid image.

That's all it takes for Dean to be sure this is the real world, and whatever had happened to Seattle is crazy hard to believe, but Dean's eyes haven't betrayed him yet, and he doubts they'd start now. So he does what he does best: he walks. He walks with a purpose, walks down the street that is deserted. And he feels like he's the only one who knows what's up in a sea of outsiders, but hesitantly acknowledges that it's really the other way around. However, he's a steadfast son of a bitch, and he walks. Downtown Seattle comes closer with each lumbering step, and although each one hurts like a thousand knives, Dean's definitely had worse. So he walks.

* * *

Max is adept at a lot of things, two of those being her spot-on perception and scrutiny. Yet she also has a caveat to that: Manticore's creations. More specifically and relevant to the moment, Alec. She always misread what others of Manticore's experiments could sense, and Alec wasn't regarded as one of the best of the best for nothing. He can feel her dark eyes follow him as he strides out of the room, and his jaw clenches at the fact that she's probably thinking that he's going to have some kind of meltdown.

Which he's not. Mainly on account of the fact that even if he felt the need to, he doesn't think he could. He doesn't even know what his nightmare was _about_. He doesn't know, but then, he never was good with the whole patience bit, the waiting for answers. Oh, he could be patient if the situation called for it (a mission, for example), but now is not one such instance.

He'd only half-lied to Max, which was better than a lot of times. He _is_ on his way to Command, but he doesn't intend to get the finance records. No, now he intends to cash in a favor with Dix for that one time the mutant had asked him to filch a hard drive from some yuppie computer firm when the mission was actually aimed for something entirely different. Alec hadn't known what he'd need a favor from Dix for, but now he does.

He walks up the stairs to the platform where the central computers are, and claps the transhuman on the shoulder. Dix jumps a little, and Alec apologizes—it isn't his fault he unknowingly tends to walk silently—but his face is grim, and Dix could never hold a grudge against the X5 rogue, let alone when he looks like…_that_.

"Dix, I need you to make good on that favor," Alec says by way of greeting. He always could whip out the charisma when needed, but at this moment, he can't quite muster it up. Besides, he knows he has Dix in the palm of his hand anyway.

Dix raises an eyebrow behind his monocle. "What do you need?" he asks, fingers already moving to his computer keyboard.

Alec slides over a chair and sits in it with the backrest towards his chest. "I need you to look up someone," Alec says. "I'd do it myself, but I don't know jack about him, so I thought it's more your area of expertise."

A grin is what answers Alec's query. "I love a challenge," Dix replies. It's what Alec had been hoping for, and he grants the mutant a small, but sadly fake, smile. "What do you know?"

In general, Alec despises Manticore inside and out, and he's glad it's now ash. Now and then, though, some of the gifts that keep on giving come in handy, namely his memory. He can thusly recall exactly what his nightmare entailed, and it's a terrible nightmare, edging towards Rachel territory, but he _needs to know_.

"There's a guy, Sam," Alec says, feeling that maybe even Dix won't be able to find anything. Sam isn't exactly the most uncommon name in the world. "He's tall, probably at least six-four, maybe six-five, shaggy brown hair, dark greenish-blue eyes. I don't know the age, though I'd put him in the late twenties to early forties range. And he's close to someone named Dean."

He decides not to mention the whole Hell part. Considering Alec and Dix and the rest of them aren't even supposed to exist, they can all believe a lot, and many of them are cynical enough to believe they'd all go to Hell, if there is such a place, but Alec doesn't want to tell Dix just yet. The nightmare felt real, like it'd actually happened, which suggests there _is_ a Hell, and someone—this Dean guy—went there, but it's pretty farfetched for even Alec. Plus, he sincerely doubts there's a lexicon of who's gone to the Underworld on the Web or something.

Dix waits for a second, like he's hoping Alec will give him more information, but no matter how hard Alec tries to remember, he can't make out any more specifics, and for the life of him he can't see what the other speaker looks like. It'd just never been from the taller man, Sam's, viewpoint.

The transhuman doesn't take well to failure, thankfully, and an ironclad determination graces his face as he turns to his trusty desktop. Alec waits. His knee bounces up and down, and he gets the strong indication that Dix would prefer it if he didn't watch over his shoulder, but if there's anything Alec has to witness, it's this. And he can't just pore over finances like the nightmare didn't have any effect on him. Max would chew him out for delaying, but what else is new? He'd get it done eventually.

All in all, it takes Dix three hours of such rapid-fire searching that Alec couldn't look at his typing fingers anymore because he'd get dizzy to come up with fifteen possible matches, but even he only gives a thirty percent certainty that they come reasonably accurate. Alec can't, unfortunately, give him much to go on.

Dix prints out the scant details of what he'd unearthed and hands them to Alec. Alec had stayed with him the whole time, moving nothing except his knee, but Dix thinks that now is the time he himself should leave. This is personal for the X5, and Dix hasn't the slightest clue what the hell's going on, but it's Alec, and Dix owes him, and that means something. So he leaves to get himself a cup of the black sludge they call coffee, with the whispered command to everyone that they shouldn't approach Alec. Not now.

For his part, Alec looks through the matches with such close inspection it'd seem he's looking for a needle in a haystack, which, all things considered, isn't all that inaccurate. He goes through person after person, writing each one off (too fat, too short, hair's not long enough, eyes are too brown, and the like). Each of the people meets Alec's criteria to some degree; each has the basic characteristics and knows—or knew, some of them are dead—someone named Dean in some way, but none really strikes a chord with Alec.

The second to last person makes him pause. And pause some more. He has vague recollection of dropping the other papers on the desk as he stares at the pages. There are two police records, one of them with a seal indicating it's from Hibbing, Minnesota, the other from Little Rock, Arkansas. Alec reads the first report with slower speed than usual. He doesn't want to miss anything.

_Record ID: DF-23094  
Name: Samuel Winchester  
Born: May 2, 1983  
Place of birth: Lawrence, Kansas  
Physical description: 6'4" Height, 180-190 lbs, Brown Hair, Brown Eyes. No distinctive markings or tattoos  
Relevant Links: Dean Winchester (deceased) – brother of subject_

It certainly fits the bill, and it's weird that it says Dean Winchester, the guy's brother (which would explain why they seemed so familial in Alec's nightmare) is dead, because the date of the police report is from 2006, and Sam had definitely looked older than twenty-three. Alec switches to the next report and reads that one carefully as well. It is much of the same information, except for the fact that it mentions Sam has a brother…an _alive_ brother. So much for Dean Winchester's "death."

There is a mug shot, too, in the file, and Alec stops. For right there is staring Sam Winchester, the guy most definitely in Alec's nightmare. Holy shit, Dix more than made good on that returned favor. Sam, looking to be honest rather dismayed and even annoyed, is holding a placard reading his ID number (81A3826, it says), and Alec was right on with his guessing of height, hair, all the rest.

His odd joy stutters, however, when he realizes that if Sam is an actual person, then that means that Dean is as well. And then something clicks in Alec's brain, something that he most assuredly should have put together a long time ago.

Sam and Dean Winchester.

Wanted for dozens of murders, grave desecrations, robberies, fraud, the list went on and on and on.

Alec _knows _them. More precisely, he's _heard _of them. Why he didn't catch it before, he doesn't know. Because Sam and Dean Winchester are the most famous serial killers since BTK. Alec was in Manticore for the majority of the Winchesters' crimes, but when he'd have deep cover missions, he'd catch the "anniversary" news from time to time, or hear stories or memories from civilians about the brutal brothers.

They hadn't come without controversy, of course. There'd been reports of witnesses who swore up and down the Winchesters weren't dangerous, that they'd saved their lives. Alec remembered now, some cop in Hibbing—_where Sam's record was_—another in Baltimore, Maryland; a hostage from a bank heist in Milwaukee, Wisconsin—_where Dean was reported to be the culprit_—a spirited woman in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, who unerringly claimed they caught her father's killer; a husband and wife from Salvation, Iowa saying they saved their infant daughter; and a few others, from policemen to Podunk diner managers.

They'd suspiciously dropped off the map sometime in '08, a year before Max and hers escaped, not before leaving behind death and chaos, but no traces of the brothers themselves. Alec hadn't really gotten into the whole business; he'd been on the outside for one reason only, and that was to assassinate, steal, or do whatever else he was told. Civilian matters didn't have much weight with him.

Damn it, now he's cursing himself for not paying more attention. That he didn't make note of all the particulars of the cases and of the two brothers. Would've saved him a lot of trouble. Now that he knows who Sam is, though, he can find out more about Dean, the guy unseen in his nightmare. Anticipating that Dean would be under the same databases Sam is, Alec goes over to Dix's computer and clicks the link from the Hibbing record. Sure enough, Dean has one.

_Record ID: DF-23094  
Name: Dean Winchester  
Born: January 24, 1979  
Died: March 7, 2006  
Place of birth: Lawrence, Kansas  
Place of death: St. Louis, Missouri  
Physical description: 6'4" Height, 175 lbs., Brown Hair, Green Eyes. No distinctive markings or tattoos. Subject was prime suspect in multiple homicide investigation in St. Louis area prior to his death  
Relevant Links: Sam Winchester – brother of subject_

So, okay, maybe Hibbing isn't the most precise—Alec knows Dean wasn't 6'4", 'cause Sam was always looking down at him, and he isn't dead (as of that record, anyhow; Alec can't technically be sure of Dean's current status)—but the rest of it seems very plausible. Alec has a brief moment of admiration for how Sam and Dean could weasel their way out of the multitude of accusations of murder and other crimes (the guy was like freakin' Yoda, murderer or not), and then hopes that the Little Rock record will have Dean's mug shot just as it does Sam's. Dean probably has a history in St. Louis, too, but Alec figures it'll just be more of the same. Plus, he's looking for a picture, and he knows for sure Little Rock will deliver.

The first thing he notices is that the guy in the mug is doing a fairly realistic rendition of Blue Steel (and, hell, anyone who can be _that_ brazen with the cops has a little of Alec's respect) mixed with a full-on smirk.

The second thing Alec notices is that the guy in the booking shot…is him.

Not exactly the same, admittedly, the face a few years older, the hair shorter, the jaw shaded in stubble, but otherwise it's Alec all right, and for the first time in a very long time—possibly ever—his entire being is struck silent.

There is one thing he knows for sure, though, in this newly extremely convoluted mess: He's not going to tell Max.


	4. Chapter III: And Then There Were Two

A/N: Same stuff applies as in the Author's Notes chapter. Oh, and unfortunately I neither own _Supernatural_ nor _Dark Angel_. Just this.

A/N part two: Specific episodes of _Supernatural_ mentioned are: "Skin," "Tall Tales," "A Very Supernatural Christmas," "No Rest for the Wicked," and vaguely "Shadow." Specific episodes of _Dark Angel_ mentioned are: vaguely "Pilot."

* * *

**Of Desire and the Status Quo**

_**Chapter III: And Then There Were Two

* * *

**_

Dean'd finally gotten into the heart of Seattle, and it'd taken him an embarrassingly long time, but really, the way he sees it, he gets a little leeway for being somewhat sluggish. Just 'cause his body's more or less all back together doesn't mean the injuries (well, that's one word for it) he sustained don't still feel like they're there.

On the way over, Dean makes mental note of his effects. Apart from the soaked clothing, there isn't much. Miraculously, he's kept his watch—it reads two forty-seven a.m., which Dean knows isn't right, but then again, it'd been through fifteen hundred years in Hell, too, so makes sense it'd be off-kilter—his wooden bracelet blessed by an old Creole priestess down in the bayous, and the silver ring that was Mary's dad's and then Mary's is still on his finger, though it has more scratches in it than he remembered. The thing he feels the most absent, however, is the Egyptian pendant Sam had given him way back in '91. The weight had been around his neck for near seventeen years, and it isn't anymore. Dean wonders where it is, hopes that maybe Sam has it. Because frankly, he feels rather naked without it laying against his chest.

As he gets farther away from the parking lot, he starts to see actual civilization. Which is a good thing, considering he was beginning to think Seattle was completely abandoned. Hell, if that happened, who's to say the whole world isn't like that? That those creepy hooded figures and Dean are the only people left? A friggin' real-life _28 Days Later_? Dean wouldn't be able to deal with that. Not well, anyway

So he then takes note of how rundown nearly every building is, the houses no longer kept up, roofs sagging, paint chipping, sidewalks cracked so far that weeds are growing in between, very few cars on the streets in favor of rickety bicycles and the occasional motorcycle.

Abruptly, Dean has the desire for a hard drink, not just for his scratchy throat, but also to dull the shock of what he'd just landed into. Problem is, he's not sure where to go. He wanders for a while, the rain not letting up, and then he finally spots an establishment whose sign labels it "Crash," and from the sounds it emits, he guesses it's a bar, or at least a pool hall. He would say "Thank God for that," but far as he can tell, there is no God. So instead he just thinks, _Finally_.

Dean doesn't really want to see what he looks like, so avoids the mirror by the entrance, and just walks in. He's only somewhat surprised to see that everyone is dressed rather like the buildings are, fashion unclear. He is irritated, though, to hear the music coming out of the speakers; it's some shitty, anemic, alternative cyber-techno crap that Dean's sure didn't exist when he was alive (and, Jesus, that sounds weird, 'cause he's alive _now_; or, that is, alive _again_. Holy shit, he thinks, he's a friggin' _zombie_). Evidently, thirteen years gave birth to this wannabe music and said sayonara to the Zeppelin and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Fuck society.

He weaves his way through the crowd, uneasy with the sudden overwhelming contact of _people_, let alone the lascivious glances he gets from a girl or two, or even the occasional double take. Finding his destination, Dean collapses in a stool at the bar, forehead thunking on the lacquered wood for a few seconds as his abused heart and lungs catch up with themselves, before he finally gets the strength to bring his head upright.

His shoulders are still hunched, his chest feels like it's burning from the inside out—_Christ_, Dean can't ever remember feeling this out of shape—and he's sure his eyes look dead, but it's not the bartender's job to psychoanalyze him, so when Dean orders a scotch, neat, it slides towards him without much hesitation.

As the amber liquid starts to fall down his throat, Dean really, really regrets ordering it. The drink feels like languid fire in his mouth, and even though he knows that's just the alcohol, he can't help but think of when it was _real_ fire sliding down his body, and he starts coughing, his insides smoking and gurgling the whole time.

Before he knows it, another glass is placed right under his face, this one filled with ice and clear liquid that smells nothing like vodka and has to be pure water. Dean's body is telling him to slow down, but he grabs the new glass and tosses back the water. It's frigid against the flames going on within him, but with each successive swallow, they start to die down a little. Once they subside, Dean is panting, and somewhat self-conscious, but mostly composed once more.

He looks up at the bartender, who is serving another patron, but his light hazel eyes are watching Dean. Once the barfly is sated, the man comes back over and refills Dean's water glass, moving the scotch away.

"You all right, man?" he asks.

Dean huffs a laugh. Well, well, isn't _that_ a loaded question. Dean tries to speak, but can't. It's not the aftereffects of the scotch, it's his damn vocal cords again. He'd practiced speaking on the way over here, and managed a few words, but he certainly isn't up to a conversation. His will is strong, but it can't work miracles. His body can only go so far.

So Dean settles for shaking his head. Getting an admittedly very pathetic idea, he moves his hand in the motion of writing, and although the barkeep frowns, he chooses to humor his patron, reaches under the bar, and presents Dean with a pad of paper and pen, both sticky with alcohol.

Grateful that his hand muscles work better than his larynx, Dean grabs the utensil and presses it to the paper, scrawling _What day is it? Why is Seattle so fucked up? _in print that only has a vague similarity to the way he knows he used to write. But, nevertheless, the words are legible enough, and so he faces it towards the man across from him.

"You on something, kid?" the bartender asks once he reads Dean's note.

_Dude. Can't talk here. And no, I'm not _on_ something, I've just gotten out of Hell, damn it. Screw you._

Maybe it's a good idea he can't speak at the moment, though, he concedes. Otherwise, he might just drive himself out of the bar. And that would kinda suck balls. Dean shakes his head again, and nods towards the paper.

The bartender looks like he wants to get away from Dean's undoubtedly crazy-looking appearance, but the other people at the bar are content enough to where he can't assist them.

The man sighs, like Dean's a fucking burden. If only he actually knew what Dean went through. But he answers just the same, "It's June 10, 2021."

Dean chokes on the sip of water he'd just taken, feeling some of it go unpleasantly up his nose and down his windpipe. "2021…" he breathes hoarsely, unsure if the bartender could tell what he said.

He'd calculated that it'd been thirteen years since he went to Hell, but hearing the confirmation…okay, so it's only a little over a decade, but the time is messing with Dean's head. Time had lapsed on Earth, but Dean's already lived far longer than that, and it's taking a while to sort things out.

He breathes in again, this time oxygen the only thing going down his airway. Still processing the date, he points to the other part of his note, and looks expectantly at the bartender.

If possible, the guy looks at Dean even stranger than he did before. "The Pulse," he says. From the guy's expression, Dean gets the sense the words are supposed to mean something to him, but they don't. Dean raises his eyebrows, waiting. "Damn, you're really out of it." Dean glares, and he comes to find out that, even after this long, it is just as effective as ever. "An electromagnetic wave that wiped out all communication systems and digital information in the country, which sent America into chaos. Nearly every city's like this."

_Well, I'll say it again, _Dean internally groans, _What the hell?_

Dean takes another long drink of water, and almost literally feels his cells sigh in relief as they absorb the fluid. He senses the bartender edge away from him, apparently judging Dean sane enough to leave by himself, and Dean, honestly, is glad for the departure. Perhaps somewhat oddly, considering he hasn't had real human contact since he bitched out Ruby—but it wasn't Ruby, Dean reminds himself with a start, and he wishes he'd thought to find out the actual girl's name; she kinda looked like a Carrie, maybe a Katie—in Lilith's body.

Then he catches a voice above the chatter of the crowd. It's kind of hard not to when he somehow knows the words and accompanied glare are directed at him.

"Hey!" the voice, a man's, yells. "It's that trannie freak from TV!"

_Trannie?_ The term is absolutely unfamiliar to Dean, and he looks over, confused. It's then he realizes he's suddenly on the ground and his face hurts like…well, like he just got it punched in.

Dean scrambles to his feet, a yard or so away from the man who looks like he's spitting an inferno. _What the fuck, man? Get the hell away from me!_ is what Dean would much like to say, but for the damaged life of him, he can't. Although by the sliver of disquiet that just graced the guy's face, Dean's pretty damn sure his own expression said the words just as well.

The other customers around the bar looked over when Dean got clocked, and while some are thoroughly confused like Dean, others are starting to look like Dean's attacker. "Yeah, you're right," a woman in her late forties says, and stares at Dean like he's lower than vermin.

And, okay, hold up, Dean would like very much to take offense to that. Fine, his moral center may be a little crooked, and he's done some things he's not proud of, but vermin? Really, that's kind of harsh. It's more than that, though, Dean's quickly deducing. It's like they know him, have seen him before, and want to kill him in a _Friday the 13__th_-type way. What'd that guy say? They'd seen him on TV?

Dean thinks for a shell-shocked minute that they're actually saying they recognize him from those newscasts forever ago—none of which were his fault, mind you—but then he quickly disregards that. It neither explained the "trannie" comment, nor the fact that _everyone_ is looking at him like they know him. Most people could watch a broadcast and then see the culprit later that day and not put it together. Not a _chance_ do these barflies see him as Dean Winchester, murderer. (Fucking shapeshifters. Dean would really like to just plug each and every one of them full of silver.)

He thinks that even in his current state, he can put the joker who punched him out of commission. It'd take more than an overweight, middle-aged man with a spare tire to kill him (again). And no fucking way is Dean going to risk going back to Hell the _day_ he gets out of it.

So he decides to make what he and Sam always called a "tactical retreat." "We're 'falling back,' Sammy," Dean remembers himself telling his brother once, the time Sam was nine-ish, he and Dean had been face-to-face with their first chupacabra, and Sam had asked why they were "running away."

"Winchesters never run away," Dean had said sternly. "They make a tactical retreat. Remember that." Sam did. He never accused Dean of doing such a thing again. Except for when he berated him of _emotionally_ running away, but Dean is _not_ going to go into that.

Just for good measure, though, he pulls back his hand and slams his fist into the guy's mug, sending him flying a good five feet away. Dean wants so badly to spit something cruel or caustic at him, but he settles for more death glares. It'd kind of defeat the purpose of his hit if he showed the onlookers that he's effectually incapable of speech at present.

Dean does run, though. He runs out of the back door he'd spotted on his way in—he by pure instinct had cased the place as he walked in; useful habits should never die, after all—and into the alleyway. His feet take him out of that and into the street which, like before, has few pedestrians. He looks behind him, almost expecting to see a mob following him, but they aren't. When he turns back around, he finds himself colliding straight on with someone.

It's a woman, whom he'd place mid-twenties, with chocolate skin and corkscrew curled hair that was hastily wrapped in two ponytails, and she's flat on her back on the concrete. Dean blinks, and then immediately reaches down a hand to pull her up. To his surprise, she smirks, ignores his offering, and stands up. She barely reaches Dean's chin, but still he takes a step back from her.

"Alec, what've we said about you touchin' Original Cindy? She likes you, boy, but don't no one go knockin' her about," says the woman.

"'M sorry," Dean whispers, wishing for another glass of water. He guesses this is the sort of woman who would smack around anyone who didn't give her a quick answer, and, his throat be damned, he continues, "Who're you?"

The woman—Original Cindy did she call herself? Dean's not sure what kind of name that is, or who speaks of themselves in the third person, but he's going to refer to her as plain Cindy, thanks—raises a manicured eyebrow and crosses her arms.

"What you playin' at?" she demands. Then she frowns a little, like she's actually studying him this time. "What's up wit' you? You look…diff'rent."

Dean's shoulders fall, and he leans against the brick wall for support. This is getting _nowhere_. What he needs is someone who'll tell him what is going on, what kind of world he's burst into, what happened to him. What he needs is _Sam_. Dean feels a knot in his throat that has nothing to do with dehydration. There have been very few moments in his life where he's felt like he's going to break down, but now is one, apparently (that's two already just today; he's getting sloppy). He doesn't know why it comes on so abruptly, but it is, and he closes his eyes, wanting it to be over.

He'd fully anticipated Cindy to walk on with a last weird stare at him, but then he feels a sharp swat on the back of his head, and his eyes snap open because, damn it, his day's already bad, and he doesn't want more pain, please. He snarls at the woman, whoever the fuck she is. Jesus, Dean didn't know he could _snarl_.

Cindy's face is peering at his, her brown eyes searching. Dean feels uncomfortable, and if there's something he's never been saddled with, it's the inability to conceal himself. So he cuts off anything she may see in his eyes, and most of what she may see in his face, but the latter he can't be sure, because truthfully, he's pretty disconnected.

"Alec?" Cindy asks again, taking Dean's chin and moving his head to the side. "You—" Something like half-comprehension falls into her expression, and she exhales heavily. "Original Cindy ain't gettin' paid enough for this."

She looks Dean up and down again, and then takes his hand. Dean's alarmed, and he moves to rip it away, but _damn_ this chick's strong. So, all right fine, maybe Dean wants the tiniest bit to know this person, if nothing else than just because she's not trying to pummel his lights out, but it certainly doesn't mean he wants to be _manhandled_.

"Come on, clone boy," she snaps. "I ain't got all day, you know."

_Clone boy?_ Dean repeats in his head. _What is _with_ all these names? Who do people think I am?_

Dean's damn good at dealing with shit hitting the fan, and this is without a doubt one of the _weirdest_ times he's had to do it (in a _very_ long storied history of weird, for the record; weirder, thus far, than that crazy slow-dancing alien business), but he'll do it anyway. In any case, Cindy seems to know something that he doesn't, and that's a start. Dean's gone on less, that's for damn certain.

So he hesitantly allows her to snatch his hand again, and she starts walking the opposite way she was when he'd into her; he has no choice but to follow. A block or so away from the bar, she strikes up conversation. Dean'd been hoping she wouldn't.

"You got a name, sugar?" she questions, glancing at him sideways. Dean wonders if she always picks up random strangers like they're family.

"Um, Dean," Dean swallows. He's getting better at this voice thing. Or, that is, at outwilling his body. "My name is Dean."

Cindy makes some noncommittal noise. "So what are you? X4, X5? Gotta be straight with you, don't know much more'n that."

Dean groans. He's pretty sure—really pretty sure—it's safe to say things are fully snafu at this point. "I'm Dean," he answers cautiously. "I'm…human…"

_I just hope you're human, too. _He really does. She doesn't seem like a demon, but then, Meg didn't either, and look how _that_ turned out. But Dean is a fuckin' expert at reading people—he _had_ been suspicious of Meg from the start—and this woman just doesn't seem the type. For one thing, she has too much personality for Hellspawn. Also, demons usually don't mix up their marks. Let alone say their mark is a _clone_. So yeah, he's, like, ninety-six percent sure she's not evil.

Cindy chuckles. "Least I know you're not one of those clones who thinks they're property," she says.

"I'm not a fucking clone!" Dean seethes. He's well aware that he sounds as angry as a puppy—fuck it, even _that_ reminds him of Sam—but the thought is there, and he's sure Cindy gets the venom behind his words.

An emotion that he can only place as surprise crosses Cindy's face, like his response was the furthest thing from what she'd envisioned. "Aiight," she says finally, and Dean knows she's humoring him, but if that's the best he's going to get, then he'll take it. Cindy points to the location at which they've ended up. "Home sweet home."

Dean takes in the place, and can't exactly say it's quite a _building_. More like a building's skeleton, scaffolding and plastic tarp as reinforcement; it's more a construction site than…oh, God, Dean didn't just come all this way with a homeless lunatic, did he?

Cindy sees the hidden panic in Dean's eyes, and, taking a guess, she shrugs and heads into where she's squatting, enters the hallway and stairs that'll lead to her apartment. A few seconds later, she hears heavy footfalls behind her, and a corner of her mouth quirks. Dean doesn't come up to pace with her, but when Cindy reaches her door, she holds it open for him. He doesn't say anything, and she wouldn't normally do this, but he does look like he's about ready to drop, so she lends him a little kindness.

"Sit yo' ass down," Cindy commands, and Dean, not one to refuse a soft couch, brushes aside an ancient _Vogue_ magazine and some laundry in order to sit unobstructed.

Cindy turns around to go to the kitchen and make coffee—she has a feeling she's definitely going to need it—but when she looks back at Dean to ask him if he wants cream or sugar, she finds him dead to the world. (It'd of course be an unfortunate phrase had she known Dean's history, but she doesn't, so.) She glances at the two full mugs of steaming joe in her hands, and then back at Dean's form, before chuckling again and setting one down on the counter.

She takes the opportunity to scrutinize the guy, because, hell, he doesn't seem like the kind of person to let her do that while awake. She sits on her coffee table and stares at him. His clothes are still in the stages of drying, and his boots look too heavy to be comfortable, but he'd walked fine with them before.

As if it weren't already, once she moves to his face, her day officially ranks among the most bizarre she'd ever had. She's staring at Alec, but not. And it isn't Ben either (she doesn't know much, because neither Max nor Alec really want to talk about him, but she hazards a guess that he was identical at least in physicality). It is—well, Dean, evidently.

She can see it now, better than when he was moving around and all anguished-like. Cindy sees the light creases next to his eyes that Alec hasn't yet gained, and the laugh lines around his mouth—even though she doesn't peg Dean as the sort of guy who laughs all that much. She sees his skin is weather beaten, like he's spent all his life outdoors, and yet still youthful. Curious, and on a whim, she lifts up his shirt, exposing his torso.

Cindy stifles her shock. She'd presumed his skin would be tanned, smooth, beautiful like his face, but it isn't. Sure, his body's fit, and mostly untouched, but his chest isn't. Right over his heart, there are jagged lines crisscrossing over and under and around, like someone had taken a dagger and tried to cut out his heart, or maybe carve something off. Cindy doesn't know what it is, but she looks at Dean's painted face again, and wonders. She silently sets him back on his stomach, and carefully pulls down the collar of his t-shirt. There's no barcode. Not even a hint of a barcode. And that puzzles her even more. Because even when freshly lasered, it was always possible, if you looked right up close, to see the faint outlines of where Max's, or Alec's, or CeCe's, or whomever's, barcode would be.

Dean doesn't have one. He _doesn't have one_.

Cindy sits back, and touches his cheek, which is too warm to be healthy, and the light sheen of sweat _definitely_ isn't a good sign. He's twitching now, like he's entering a dream, or a nightmare, and Cindy doesn't know what to do. "Who _are_ you?"


	5. Chapter IV: In Dreams That Bend

A/N: Same stuff applies as in the Author's Notes chapter. Oh, and unfortunately I neither own _Supernatural_ nor _Dark Angel_. Just this.

A/N part two: Specific episodes of _Supernatural _mentioned are: none. Specific episodes of _Dark Angel_ mentioned are: "Pollo Loco."

* * *

**Of Desire and the Status Quo**

_**Chapter IV: In Dreams That Bend

* * *

**_

Original Cindy watches Dean for a long time, staring at his body curled uncomfortably against her couch, her coffee abandoned. He's jerking and writhing around, groaning indistinguishable words; or of the few that are distinguishable, she hasn't the slightest clue what they mean.

His thrashing is from an obvious nightmare, Cindy's gathered this much, but it reminds her eerily of the seizures Max used to get, and it makes her want to score Dean some tryptophan, or at least some milk. Then she remembers that, for some reason she can't explain, Dean isn't a transgenic. And is probably the kind of person who scoffs over milk and would take a good malt forty over it any day.

No, this is a bad, old-fashioned night terror, and Cindy feels helpless, a sensation she doesn't usually have. A big part of her wants to awaken Dean in order to get his torment to stop, but another part of her warns against it. It could only go one of three ways: a) he'd strangle her out of sheer fear, b) he'd say it was nothing and close off just like every infuriating transgenic Cindy's met, or c) if she waits until he gains consciousness again by himself, not only does she have a better chance of living, but maybe he'd be more forthcoming.

Possibly most importantly, Dean needs the sleep, that much is evident. He looks like he's had purple eyeshadow swathed beneath his lower lashes, and the corners of his full lips are drawn down, his cheeks gaunter than Cindy would like. (She knows, after all, what his face _should_ look like; it should look kinda like Alec's.) A few hours of sleep wouldn't make it all better, but it's the least Cindy thinks she can do. Dean may not be transgenic—and how the hell can she figure _that_ bitch out?—but he's sure acting like one just out of Manticore and freaked to high heavens, and so she'll treat him like one.

She also holds her phone in her hand, fingers itching to dial Max's number. The only reason she's refrained so far is because she's not sure Dean's problem is anywhere up Max's alley. Half of her argues that, the other half argues that it doesn't matter, Max could help somehow anyway, and maybe Logan as well.

Heaving a sigh with one last glance at Dean's twitching body (_No, no, Sammy, help me, save me, Sammy, please_, he groans,and Christ, Cindy wants to help him, she _does_), she takes the phone into her bedroom and presses the numbers for Terminal City's Command Center.

"Who is this?" the crisp, perpetually accusatory voice of Mole greets her, and for once she can't muster up a retort. "This is a private line."

"Mole, it's Original Cindy," she says. "I need to speak with my girl."

Mole likes her well enough, she knows, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have a job to maintain. "Regarding?" he demands, his voice stifled around what Cindy assumes is his ever-present cigar.

"It's about…" Cindy pauses. What can she say? "It's about Alec."

It sort of is; Dean _looks _like Alec anyway. And the guy would want to know, of that much Cindy is certain. "What about Alec?" Mole snaps, and Cindy's sure she detects Mole's version of concern in his voice. Alec's his buddy, and although Mole would never admit it, everyone knows it.

"Just…please, boo," Cindy implores.

Mole must have heard something in her tone, because he ultimately grumbles, "Hold on."

A few seconds later, Cindy hears the muffled sounds of what is unmistakably Max and Alec bickering, and, as an extra gift, a loud noise that lets her know Max bestowed Alec with a smack—as per usual. Cindy's positive Max's hits are no longer truly intended to be painful, but Alec pretends that they do, just as always. Tension relief, as it were.

Cindy doesn't have any time to reflect on their ridiculous antics anymore, though, because Max comes to the phone. "Cin?" she asks, surprised. "What's wrong?"

"Can't I call my girl jus' 'cause?" Cindy replies immediately, casting a glance through her doorway where Dean is still squirming.

"What is it?" Max asks again, and now her tone is clearer, more focused, like she can tell Cindy has something huge to tell her. Even the background noise is gone, which means either she'd sent Alec away, or he complied with temporarily shutting his mouth.

Cindy exhales. "We got a problem," she says.

"We got lots of problems, O.C.," Max replies, and there's probably something going on down in Terminal City, too, but right now, Cindy has to get her to listen.

"What'd you say if I told you I mighta met the donor of yo' boy's nice face?" Cindy bursts out. The thought had been plaguing her for a while, that maybe Dean is actually Ben and Alec's genesis, but she has no more than wild speculation.

Max is silent on the other end, and Cindy's pretty sure she hears Alec ask what's wrong, but Max can't reply to him either. Eventually she finds her voice. "What are you saying?" she asks.

Cindy knows she's treading dangerous territory. It's bad enough that the massive hole in Max's soul that's Ben's memory was mentioned, but now it has to do with Alec, too, and Max doesn't say it, probably doesn't even think it, but she's protective over the guy, and Cindy's just said all the wrong words. She'd love to ease Max into this, but knows she can't. Dean doesn't just look like Alec's future self, he currently looks like he's going to keel over from the force of his nightmare, and Cindy won't have that.

"I'm saying that there's a fine brother at my place, and he looks an awful lot like Alec," Cindy says.

"Then he's just some pretty, narcissistic, sweet-talking, irritating asshole," Max gripes. "You're sounding crazy, Cin."

Cindy feels some of her self-control break. "You know that ain't cool, Max. You know Original Cindy ain't stupid, and she's not gonna say things like this if she wasn't bein' straight with you. Please, Max. He's…he ain't doing well."

Max's hand tightens so much on the phone that even Cindy can hear the plastic creak in protest. "Meaning?" she asks, undoubtedly fearing the worst, like Dean had shown schizophrenic tendencies or something.

Which, fair enough, some of the things Dean is moaning in his sleep are…unorthodox, but then, Cindy's talking to a genetically engineered super-soldier with feline DNA here. It's all like that pre-Pulse show _The X-Files_ Cindy'd heard a few newscasts mention in reference to transgenics, and if anyone can help, it's Max.

"Meaning he's having one hell of a nightmare, and is a step away from kickin' the bucket," Cindy says sharply. She doesn't see Max's dark frown on the other end, she immediately thinking of Alec's own nightmare that morning.

And she knows she can't ignore this, despite the odd behavior of Alec's that she wants to decipher. "Okay, I'll be down there in a sec," Max accedes. Cindy hears faint sounds of heated discussion before the phone clicks off.

Exiting her bedroom, she sits back down on the coffee table, facing Dean. He'd changed; he is deathly still, only his eyes moving under their lids and his minutely rising and falling chest telling her he's even alive. She isn't sure if this or his vicious terrors bothers her more. Guiltily glad he isn't Alec, Cindy nevertheless extends her hands and tugs off Dean's heavy work boots, placing them next to the couch. She can't imagine they're the most comfortable of footwear, and it's as much as she'll venture towards him again, considering he currently reminds her more of a wounded animal than ever. Like, she realizes with a frown, a scared transgenic.

God, she needs an aspirin.

* * *

"What's got you so spooked, Maxie?" Alec asks as he watches Max's face drawn tight, her hands tying up her hair in a messy ponytail. He'd heard most of the conversation, and it didn't make much sense to him, but he thought he'd be polite anyway. "What'd O.C. say?"

"Would you just be quiet for five fucking seconds?" Max spits nastily, her dark eyes steaming. She'd long since stopped seeing only Ben's face on Alec, but with Cindy's phone call, her dead brother flashes on him.

Alec holds his hands up in mock surrender, and he unhitches himself from the corner of her desk. "God forbid I worry just a little," Alec retorts. "I'll leave you alone."

He strides out of her office and slams the door, and Max presses her fingers to the bridge of her nose, feeling a headache coming on. She doesn't _want_ to alienate Alec, but sometimes he chooses the most inopportune times to speak up. She also has a feeling he'd want to know about this new set of developments, but she can't bring herself to tell him. She thinks he has enough with the nightmare on his mind—because she can see ridiculously clearly that it's still bothering him—never mind that she's sure he still feels backlash from Ben. He doesn't need possibly _another_ look-alike to add to his issues. Not that _she_ does either, but this is her responsibility.

She's not certain of what she tells Mole as she walks out of the gates, but it must've been good enough for the lizard-man, because he doesn't send sentinels to stop her. She knows the entrance to Terminal City is still covered by the military, and so she finds her way to the sewers instead, jumping down and blurring through the dank passageways towards Sector Five, where Cindy's apartment is.

As she climbs out of the manhole cover carefully, she's aware that she smells faintly of rotten bananas and algae, but she can't do much about that now. She walks the block or so to the apartment, being sure to throw up her hood and keep her hair around her face to prevent her from being recognized. She doesn't know exactly how many people _would_ recognize her with just a passing glimpse, but she doesn't want to take any chances. It doesn't matter that Alec would undoubtedly get her out of wherever she'd be imprisoned—she'd never hear the end of it.

Seven floors later, Max's hand hits the door five times, and it takes Cindy only a few seconds to answer it. "Shh," Cindy whispers before Max can say anything. "Boy's sleepin'."

Max wants to see the guy immediately, but Cindy pulls her into her bedroom and locks the door, concealing who Max doesn't yet know is Dean from her view. They're both acutely conscious that Max could get out of the door and past Cindy before her friend could even blink, but given the expression on Cindy's face, Max stays put.

"What's the deal, Cin?" she questions firmly. "You call me down here and say there's another Alec and Ben disaster going on? You need to give me more than that."

"I ain't sure," Cindy says. "I ran into him—literally—on the streets, thought it was Alec hangin' around, for some reason runnin' away like some bat outta Hell, but he looked diff'rent. Thought he was a double or somethin'. Brought him back here, boy falls asleep in minutes. Don't want to wake 'im."

"Why the hell not?" Max snipes.

Cindy puts her hands on her hips, taking a defensive stance. "For one, he's moving like he's havin' a fit—don't think he is, jus' a bitch of a nightmare—and for two, he looks like he could kick Original Cindy's ass if he wanted. Seems like Alec, to be honest."

Max sighs, her headache intensifying. If _Cindy_ doesn't want to mess with this dude, Max is in for a long night. "So, what, he's transgenic?"

Cindy laughs. "That's jus' it, girl," Cindy says. "He ain't. An' before you go wiggin' out on me, I checked. Boy don't have any barcode. Don't know who he is. But Original Cindy's sure he's just human."

Her eyebrows raised, Max unlocks Cindy's door and steps out, staying quiet in spite of her instincts. In an ordinary situation, she'd march over to the couch and slap the guy awake, but this is far from ordinary. His head is facedown in a pillow, and Max squats down two or so feet in front of him and gently moves his face towards her. His features twisted into ones of fear and agony, but that doesn't mask the very apparent fact that Cindy wasn't lying when she said they have a problem.

"Shit," Max says. It's the only thing she really can say.

"Right?" Cindy echoes, having had the same reaction.

Max looks at her friend and pauses. "You're _sure_ he's not transgenic," she asks in almost a plea, even though she'd seen the absence of a barcode, too; plus, he's too old to be an X5, yet human enough looking that he can't be any breed earlier than that either.

Cindy's voice is quieter than Max's. "Positive, girl. I jus' don't know why the guy's comin' around here if he's a donor; Manticore made good on their promise of hidin' them from you, din't they?"

"Yeah," Max affirms. She glances quickly back at the couch, and then to Cindy again. "Does he have a name?"

"Says it's Dean," Cindy replies. "He didn't say nothin' else."

"Dean," Max repeats, as if testing it. "I guess I can ask Logan if he can find a donor with that name and face from those Manticore files he nicked."

Cindy nods. "Better find somethin'."

Max gives her a half-smile, and then turns to Dean. Despite everything, she's a bit concerned now that she actually sees him. She doesn't know the guy—for all she does know, he's one of White's henchmen—but she's witnessed and experienced enough night terrors to be a hundred percent sure Dean's not faking. Even Alec's not that good an actor. And that's saying a lot. She fingers the wooden, African-looking bracelet on his wrist and the silver ring on his right hand curiously, committing them to memory just in case of…anything.

And quickly finds out that was a very _bad_ idea. With a speed she hasn't seen in an Ordinary before, Dean's eyes snap open and his hand grips onto her wrist like a vise. His eyes—_Alec's_ eyes, Max notes with some alarm—are wild, the pupils dilated so only a thin ring of green is visible, tendons straining in his forearm. Max tries to pull hers away, but the guy has unnatural strength, enough to hold _her_.

She isn't afraid exactly, more perplexed than anything else. She's looking right into his eyes, and he's doing the same, but he's not seeing her, not really. She wonders what he does see. Especially when he starts screaming.

They're terrible screams, screams Max knows all too well, screams that bring her back to Psy Ops and Isolation. Primal screams that don't belong in the guy's mouth. Then he begins speaking—and by speaking, she means crying out—and she stops trying to get out of his grasp, regardless of that her hand is edging towards turning purple. She can't; she's mesmerized.

"_STOP IT!" _Dean yells, his voice deep, hoarse, raspy in a way Alec's has never been. "What do you want from me? SAMMY! Sammy, _help me! _Help—I don't deserve this! I _don't belong in Hell, you fucking bastards! _I don't—" His voice gives way to more anguished screaming, so raw and soul-deep that Max's hair stands on end.

She looks at Cindy, helpless, but Cindy is as captivated as Max was. So she does the only thing she can think of. Fully aware that she just may be risking her life, she puts her free hand on the side of Dean's face, running her fingers through his now sweat-soaked hair, down over his cheekbones, his chapped lips, the planes of his nose and rough jaw. They're motions she'd always used to calm Ben down, on the rare occasions he would get such bad night terrors and sweats that she was afraid he'd get taken away for being defective; but never Alec, because the damn guy compartmentalized too well, even in sleep. Not that she'd want to in the first place, of course.

"Dean," she says gently, in the same lilt as so many years ago, even though the name is unfamiliar on her lips.

She remembers she used to hum to Ben, too, and she kind of wants Cindy to leave her alone with Dean—Jesus, why again is she so trusting? Why is she doing this? Max has no idea. Somehow, she feels drawn to the Ordinary (_is_ he Ordinary?) and she can't let go—but she knows Cindy won't. Leaning close to Dean's face and continuing with her stroking, Max starts humming that tune whose title she doesn't recall anymore, but whose rhythm she remembers as well as if it were just yesterday and this were Ben. It isn't hard to picture it, really, considering Dean might as well be Ben's older self.

Her fingers further their trailing along his face and through short hair, wanting him to calm down, needing him to calm down. Certainly Ben never said things like _I don't belong in Hell_, and Max is mighty suspicious of what in the world that means, but that's not her most pressing issue at the moment. Her most pressing issue is trying to stop Dean from inadvertently killing himself. It was rare, but she'd heard of kids in other units dying of heart arrest because of such intense mind warfare. Dean is a grown man, older than Max and Alec, to be sure, but the way he looks now…she doesn't want to take the chance.

Finally, _finally_, his screams fade to aching whimpers, and his grip loosens on her wrist. Max puts her palm on his cheek again and his eyes close, lashes shadowing on his already shadowed cheekbones. Max isn't sure if his nightmare is over, or if he's just repressed into the stage where it's still in full speed but only visible to him, and that troubles her more than most of this.

But, god_damn_ it she wants it to be over. Because if he really is just an Ordinary, that means he wasn't an employee of Manticore's; and yet he's having horrors as bad, if not worse, than those Manticore created. Max doesn't want to imagine what could've caused such catastrophe in Dean's life. Oh, she wants to get to the bottom of this whole thing, but she's almost afraid of what she'll find.

Max stands up, suddenly exhausted, and walks over to Cindy, leaning against the counter. "He's been doing this the whole time?" she inquires.

Cindy nods. "Same stuff over an' over," she confirms. "I was gonna break out the handcuffs, but din't wanna move him."

"And what's he's saying about Hell?" Max continues with a frown. "What do you make of it? It's got to be just a fear or something, right?"

Her friend shrugs. "Sugar, I don't know," Cindy says. "Seems real at least to him."

"I've got to call Logan about this," Max says. She doesn't feel like telling him all the details she knows about Dean just yet—_Why?_ Max asks herself again. _I don't owe anything to this stranger_—but Logan's used to dealing with her evasiveness. He'd help her just the same. "Do you think you can handle him?"

Cindy squares her shoulders. "Original Cindy ain't singin', but she's gonna watch over this new boy of ours."

Max far from wants _another_ "boy," but it looks like Dean's going to be staying awhile. _By all means_, Max thinks sarcastically, _let him join the club. Not like we don't have enough mayhem already._

With a last, sad scan of Dean (whose face is already starting to twitch again, which she dares to wish actually _are_ seizures, 'cause at least then she'd know what to do), Max walks out of Cindy's apartment, swinging a leg over her Ninja and heading off towards Sandeman's old house, where Logan is still unfortunately living in lieu of his destroyed penthouse.


	6. Chapter V: Be Careful What You Wish For

A/N: Same stuff applies as in the Author's Notes chapter. Oh, and unfortunately I neither own _Supernatural _nor _Dark Angel_. Just this.

A/N part two: Specific episodes of _Supernatural_ mentioned are: "Skin," "Crossroad Blues," "Jus In Bello," and "No Rest for the Wicked." Specific episodes of _Dark Angel_ mentioned are: "Pollo Loco," "Designate This," "She Ain't Heavy," and "Freak Nation."

A/N part three: Go here: www(dot)flickr(dot)com/photos/40075795(at)N07/sets/72157622636515436/ for screenshots of the reports, in order, mentioned later in this chapter. Remember to change the symbol words to their respective symbols.

* * *

**Of Desire and the Status Quo**

_**Chapter V: Be Careful What You Wish For

* * *

**_

Max had been thinking of what she's going to say to Logan the whole trip from Cindy's to Joshua's old digs, but she's still not clear on what words to use. She plans on doing what she does best—winging it. So, letting her motorcycle fall back on its kickstand and removing her sunglasses, she walks up to the door and raps her knuckles on it.

She hears quiet footfalls from within, and soon the whirring of Logan's exoskeleton, before the door is cautiously opened. As soon as Logan sees Max's face, he opens the door wider to let her in. It's awkward between them, that much is noticeable; Max remains confused over what Logan's actions on the day Terminal City's flag was raised meant, and she's not had a lot of time to think of all the ramifications, let alone discuss it with him.

Which would make it doubly hard to talk to him about something that concerns, of _all_ the people in the world that it could be, Alec, the second of two obstacles (the other being the virus of course) that has played a part in hindering their relationship ever since Max got out of Manticore for the second time.

"Hey, Logan," Max says, removing her biking gloves.

"Hey, yourself," Logan replies, his tone gentle. He moves immediately to a box by the door that is filled with latex gloves, which was his idea to allow them to touch, at least as much as possible.

Max tries not to eye them disdainfully as she thinks of how much she used to take skin-to-skin contact for granted, how real and warm (if feverish) Dean's face felt on her palm; her hand swatting Alec's shoulder; hugging Cindy when times got tough; hell, Mole restraining her arm. The feel of plasticky gloves isn't particularly her idea of romance. But she's not here for that. She's here to figure out just who Dean is—and, really, all she's got is his name and description, _that'll_ be easy to glean information from—why he's here now, how he connects to Alec (and Ben for that matter), and what in God's name is the significance of Dean and Hell.

She hopes with all she has that Dean isn't crazy. She's not sure if she could deal with another person gone off the deep end, never mind that he just may be Alec and Ben's genetic brother. She's never met Dean when he's conscious, so she doesn't have practically any ties with him as she does his lookalikes, but she definitely can't bear to have a repeat of Ben. She doesn't necessarily want another Alec either (shit, that'd be torture for her already thin patience), but she'd rather that than another schizophrenic. Unfortunately, all she can do is wait and see what Dean's personality is like. Or maybe, hopefully, Logan would be able to provide some insight.

Yeah, right.

But Max stows her cynicism for the moment and walks over to Logan's desk, sitting on the edge of it and feeling guilty that White destroyed his penthouse. He'd "acquired" most of the electronics that he'd had in Fogle Towers, but they aren't quite as up to date, and aren't nearly as fast as they used to be, considering Joshua's house isn't fitted with as much electricity or internet connection. Logan's done his best, though, she knows.

"So, what's up?" he asks, voice now somewhat stilted. She guesses he's picked up on her tenseness, and how could he not, considering she's radiating it like a neon sign? He's known her long enough to recognize the signs: she's riled up about something huge.

His counterpart sighs, and runs a hand over her face. "I need you to look something up for me," Max says, as calmly as she can manage, given how even more fucked up her life has gotten just in the past half hour. She amends, after a second thought, "Please."

Logan frowns. "I thought you had people to do that," he says, attempting to keep any bitterness out of his tone. He's aware that he's acting childish being jealous of Dix and Luke's computer prowess—they _were_ made just for that—but he can't help it. Then again, Max _is_ at his place, asking _him_ for help. That counts, just a little.

Max scowls, crossing her arms protectively underneath her breasts. "It's not something I really want public, Logan," she responds, and ah, _shit_, she's used his name at the end of a sentence. Logan keeps it in mind to back off on his unintentionally confrontational posturing.

"Okay, okay, I get it," Logan placates. He opens up his browser of hacking federal agency databases and asks, "What do you need?"

"It's…well, if you can find what I hope you will, don't look at me like I'm insane. I'm already wired enough about it," Max entreats, adding after Logan's raised eyebrows, "And if you can, start with Manticore's files."

Logan's curiosity is instantly piqued, but he doesn't show it. "All right," he agrees. "Tell me what you know."

Dean's face immediately pops into the forefront of Max's mind, and she tries not to wince just thinking of his horrific nightmare, and the means she'd had to resort to—not to mention the memories dredged up—in order to just calm him down to where his terrors were isolated to purely internal despair.

She attempts to see past that, though, see his body as she imagines it's _supposed _to look. She sees a military haircut (but one that he seems to be defiantly growing out) and not sweat-slicked; bright, expressive green-amber irises that spark with enthusiasm under usual circumstances, not crazed, haunted, rapidly-moving ones; smooth, shaped lips that curve into a smirk, a grin, a charming and heartfelt smile, not broken and lifeless ones that can only frown and twitch in anger or fear; strong, muscled shoulders and arms that carry their owner with a certain amount of swagger, but also alertness, not hunched and dull; roughened and calloused but nimble hands and fingers that she imagines could be both for hard work and soft caresses, not bloodied and cracked, grayish skin stretched too tautly across the knuckles.

She sees _Dean_, a guy she's known for maybe fifteen minutes, but of whom she already has a concrete image, an ideal image of which she has no idea the legitimacy, but that she hopes is close to real. In any case, she doesn't want the way Dean looked to her just now to be the way he's always looked. So what if she wants a carefree and mostly innocent, if womanizing, guy who takes life to the fullest and damn the consequences, not a masked happiness and yet internally damaged guy who only pretends to be untroubled (which is what Max knows Alec to be, and wishes he weren't).

Max relays Dean's attributes to Logan, but not insofar as she'd seen him. Just the basics, which, okay, are really all she knows, but she's left out the extrapolations she's drawn. She's pretty certain Logan doesn't want to listen to her inferring Dean's hands are capable of "soft caresses," especially if she'd told him he was an Alec facsimile. Somehow, she thinks he'd be less inclined to dig up information for her if she said as much.

Logan, however, is fully cognizant of her anxiety, and purses his lips at it, wanting desperately to know what the issue is, but knowing that if he prods, she will only retreat further into herself. And then, he'd be even farther away from coaxing it out of her than he is now. So he lets her think he's completely oblivious to her tension, and instead focuses on the scant details she's given him.

Scant details that make him think of a certain Manticore alumnus, but whom Max obviously can't be describing, because why would she have him looking for Alec when she knows perfectly well where he is, and Logan knows Ben's long dead? (A still sore spot for him, given that Max has never told him what specifically happened to her late brother, not even what the man looked like; Logan had even searched for Ben before secretly, but that part of the Manticore files were omitted. Either because Ben had become defective by Manticore's standards and so they deleted any evidence of him, or it was part of the records that Logan hadn't been able to salvage.)

It takes him a wearily long time to find the sketchiest of matches, but when he does, he rubs his itchy eyes and turns the computer monitor towards Max, hoping hers aren't swimming like his are. He hadn't found any affiliations with Manticore—there was a Dean, but he was in his sixties, balding, and decidedly _un_fit—so he'd had to widen his search to, well, everywhere.

The Pulse had, of course, made finding records more difficult, but thankfully, pre-Pulse agencies had archived the files for the more dangerous criminals, all the federal officials, and the like. Not that Max had said specifically that this Dean person was a criminal, but Logan didn't have much to work with in the first place.

Max takes the mouse from him and scrolls down, reading at a rapid speed, faster than Logan could ever hope to, and her face becomes tighter as she gets farther down, obviously not finding what she wants. Thirty-two persons later, though, Max's finger wavers over the mouse, and she clicks on the file.

Logan watches her face carefully, profiling her much as he would do with a new contact. Her eyes widen the slightest bit, and her mouth opens a little, somehow the air around her gets darker, and yet Logan knows that the new expression means she's nothing less than stunned, with a side order of bewilderment.

"Son of a _bitch_," Max mutters, staring at the text. Then, in a strangled voice, she manages, "Thanks, Logan." She snatches the whole pile of matches that Logan had preemptively printed out, and blurs out of the house so fast that some of his folders fall off the desk. The door closes quietly enough, but it's barely half a second after that that Logan hears the rumble of Max's motorcycle start and tires squeal against the pavement as she speeds away.

Shaking himself out of his astoundment, Logan turns the computer screen back towards him, glad Max hadn't thought to close the document, and scans over what she'd been so deer-in-the-headlights about. Once he gets through it all, though, he understands why.

There are multiple records for the guy, somewhat surprisingly, of various severity, and some come with a picture, but Logan clicks on two that look the most promising. He quickly reads the details of the police report, disregarding the pictures for the moment:

_St. Louis Police Department  
Name: Dean Winchester  
DOB: January 24, 1979  
POB: Lawrence, Kansas  
Height: 6'1"  
Weight: 175 lbs.  
Hair: Brown  
Eyes: Brown  
Notes: No distinctive marks_

The date of birth catches Logan off-guard, because it's not anything like what Max had detailed. Unless, of course, the man looks _remarkably_ youthful for his age. Because if his birth year is right, and the ones on official reports usually are, then it would put him currently at about forty-two and a half years of age, and Max had given Logan an age of somewhere around twenty-six to thirty-one. It doesn't make sense. So Logan switches to the next record.

_WANTED BY THE FBI  
MURDER, ROBBERY, ESCAPE FELON  
DEAN WINCHESTER  
Aliases: J. Mahoggoff, Jerry Garcia, John Smith, Donald Strump, etc.  
Age: 26  
Height: 6'1"  
Weight: 175 lbs.  
Eyes: Hazel  
Hair: Lgt. Brown  
Build: Fit  
Complexion: Fair  
Race: White  
Nationality: American  
Markings: Unknown  
Language: English  
Occupation: Unknown_

It's equally as puzzling to him, even if he ignores the glaring error in this report (which marks him as twenty-six, and yet the record was filed in 2007, making him twenty-eight at the time of the arrest). It matches what the first statement said, the guy being forty-two as of this January. So what's the deal?

Logan looks closer at the information, at the names, and he leans back in his chair, passing a hand through his hair once he recognizes it. Unlike Max and Alec, he remembers very vividly the string of crimes that Dean Winchester—and his brother's name is Sam, Logan recalls—committed, and all the mystery that shrouded it, bearing in mind that he was seventeen and devoted to journalism when they first began, not five or six, like Max and Alec were.

He closes his eyes as he thinks back almost thirteen to sixteen years ago, and the numerous newscasts he'd read and heard. Logan remembers doing a whole series of articles on the Winchester murders, identity and credit card fraud, and countless other misdemeanors, intrigued by their methods and weird array of felonies, capitalizing on their sensationalism. He was left bone-dry by early March of 2008, the last information on them being that they might have been the two "fugitives from justice" caught in a police station explosion in Monument, Colorado. Although there was that gruesome triple homicide slash triple disappearance of a family (and one unrelated, young blonde woman) in New Harmony, Indiana that had been suspicious.

Judging by the appearance of the crime scene—a line of a powdery substance in front of the double doors leading to the dining room that police never were able to identify; blood in broad, arcing splatters across the hardwood, table, and even hitting the opposite walls; the grandfather's neck snapped a hundred and eighty degrees around; the smell of sulfur in the air; and possibly the weirdest were the deep scratches in the floor, as if made by giant dogs, wolves even, which officials wrote off as knife marks—_yeah, what_ever—the media had attributed it to the Winchester brothers, even though they'd been off grid for three months. (Not that they'd not been off grid for longer than that before, but it was a reaching connection regardless.)

After that disaster, though, there'd been absolutely _nothing_ for so long that the media and feds began to let the Winchesters fall under the "Unsolved Cases" (a.k.a. "Pains In Our Ass, But We Can't Find Them") category, and moved on to other, more pertinent cases. Logan had done some idle digging and found a few strange incidents in various cities across the U.S. that seemed in the Winchester vein, but they weren't often enough or solid enough to be distinct ascriptions.

As a result, Logan had left the brothers to the wayside, and instead altered his attentions to more normal and recent events, the serial killers melding into the vague "Oh yeah, I kinda remember them; one was really tall, and one was really cute, right?" sections of people's memories, much like the serial killers of the past.

Logan discovers that he's forgotten the Winchesters enough to where he can't pick out their faces worth any decency, which is an annoyance, but then again, he _did_ find those files on Dean. He hadn't yet looked at the pictures, and damn it but he's kicking himself for that one, and is going to blame it on his trying to recall a quarter of a century ago for two people who made it their mission to stay as under the radar as possible, and who for the most part succeeded damn well. Yeah, that's it.

He almost wishes he _hadn't_ clicked on the reports, though, a second later when he sees the photos. He's transfixed on them, his eyes seeing _Alec_, but his brain refusing to accept that what he's looking at is the transgenic they'd all come to know and love. (All right, so maybe not _love_, in Logan's case particularly, but same difference.)

The first report, the one from St. Louis, Missouri, has a photo that looks younger than Max had cited of the guy—and way younger than forty-two—is in washed-out color, and looks much like the usual convicts one might see, perhaps even the more doped-up ones, albeit more handsome and less meth-scarred than most. The second, from Little Rock, Arkansas, appears more akin to what you'd see on that old show _America's Most Wanted_, complete with grainy security-camera shot and two mug shots, one profile and one straight on.

Logan might be able to write the pictures off as this Dean person happening to look eerily like Alec, and really, they do say that everyone has a twin out there somewhere, right? (He petulantly ignores the fact that many of the people he knows actually _do _have a twin out there, a literal clone, because no way is Dean a Manticore grad. He's too old for that.)

The only problem with this refusal is that Dean's smirking face is too similar to Alec's to be completely a fluke. Logan's well aware that a lot of guys are cocky and smirk a lot, but he is, and has been, around Alec enough—_too_ much, in his opinion—to recognize the patented Alec McDowell, even X5-494 Logan would bet, smirk when he sees it. And Dean Winchester, serial murderer and all-around freaky dude, is wearing it in plain sight. Logan sighs in exhaustion, and sets his glasses down on the table. Max really doesn't thank him enough.

Logan's game for a challenge just as much as the next guy, especially one that settles into mostly the logic and reasoning category, but this is a little too rich for his blood. Well, fuck it all, but he's resigned now to the inevitability that he's got a long couple nights, maybe even weeks, ahead of him. He stands up to go make some double-caf coffee for himself. And maybe a painkiller or two just as a precaution.

Looks like he's going to be delving into his past journalism career, hoping he'd been as thorough as he remembers, investigating not only the Winchesters, but also even the most remote connections they may have to Manticore. Oh, joy of joys.

* * *

Max races back to Original Cindy's apartment faster than she usually would, avoiding as many sector checkpoints as possible, and most definitely shattering the speed limits on the roadways. Not that she can really bring herself to care about them; she has much more important things to think about at the moment.

Like how, you know, there is a very real possibility that a convicted mass murderer could very well be Alec and Ben's genetic donor, if not, by some convoluted series of events, their clone. And Max had freakin' hummed the guy to sleep. She knows full well that she's a deadly weapon by herself, and could definitely kick the guy's ass, but even _she's_ had her ass kicked on occasion, usually as a result of being caught off guard. She'd classify trying to calm down a freaked Alec lookalike as being caught _monumentally_ off guard.

She was—and still is—sure that Dean's nightmare was legit, but that doesn't mean jack squat in matters of self-preservation. If Dean had seen Max as a threat, well, she probably wouldn't currently be able to drive. Or at least that's what she guesses from the short time she'd met the man. His grabbing of her wrist was certainly fast and hard enough to echo extensive training: there are specific ways that one can incapacitate another by even the smallest appendages, and most people, when grabbing a wrist, wouldn't necessarily be able to prevent their opponent from twisting out of it.

But Dean, even with his theoretical disadvantage on the couch, had held her wrist by the ulnar and medial nerves, pinching them to where she could feel her hand tingle, and she is under no illusions that he couldn't have pulled an aikido lock on her in a second or two flat. Sure, she'd probably be able to stop him before he could finish it, but it was the _ability_ that had her wary.

Armed with the stack of matches Logan had printed out, Max steps off her motorcycle, hides it underneath a piece of tarp, and walks into the apartment building, a feeling of déjà vu coming over her; that is, if the déjà vu were incredibly foreboding.

Cindy opens her door after one knock of Max's, like she'd been waiting right beside it, and one quick glance over to the couch lets Max know Dean is still asleep. Cindy's expression turns to intrigue when she sees a mix of uncertainty, fury, and agitation on her friend's face. No one could ever accuse her of having an uneventful friendship with Max, that much is for sure.

"So?" Cindy prompts, her voice muted. She hitches her thumb towards Dean. "Is clone boy over there livin' up to his name or what?"

Max blows out a breath and gestures for Cindy to follow her into the bedroom. Taking a seat on the bed, Cindy joining her a moment later, she hands the files to her friend. "Number forty-four, Cin."

Cindy takes the records from Max, and curiously flips through all the subjects until she gets to the one Max dictated. She sees first the pictures, and they're unmistakably Dean, although she's amazed to see how unburdened he looks in them, even though they're prison shots, in comparison to how he looks now, tossing and turning in the throes of another nightmare.

She's saved from the shock of Dean looking exactly like Alec, given that she dealt—well, _dealt_ being a relative term—with it before seeing these arrest reports. Assuming Max isn't banking on Cindy's reaction just to the photos, she scans the rest of the print, reading Dean's stats and his impressive display of offenses.

She's pretty sure she's supposed to have a deep revelation about what she's reading, and there may be a tickle at the back of her mind, but she's not coming up with much. She turns to Max, shrugging her shoulders. "I got nothin', boo," she says with a touch of apology.

Max rolls her eyes and points to the pages in Cindy's hands. "You really don't remember hearing about Sam and Dean Winchester?" she hisses, gesturing at the wall, in the general direction of where Dean is. "Come on, those guys that everyone went on about how freakish and cultish their crimes were? Devil worship and black magic and shit like that? Pretty much the only concrete fact the cops had was that Dean drove this old, black Chevrolet; they were pretty big news, Cin. Logan told me once he did a whole set of articles on the Winchester brothers when he was younger, only I didn't put it together until now."

Cindy thinks there's some recollection she has, a vague remembrance of years and years ago when there was some appalling crime spree or something, but she was young, so really hadn't paid much attention to it, and apparently that is now coming back to bite her in the ass.

"Sugar, Original Cindy ain't Superwoman," Cindy says with a smile. "You and your fine transgenic brain remember, but I was jus', what," Cindy glances at the earliest date on Dean's files again, "six when that boy first got suspected of icin' that sister? Sorry, Max, I just don' remember."

Max gives Cindy an apologetic smile. Sometimes she forgets that Cindy really is an Ordinary, that she didn't grow up with being forced to keep things in her mind or else, to remember even the littlest facts. Granted, Manticore didn't exactly laser focus on civilian arrests and crimes—under which Manticore would undoubtedly classify the Winchesters—but Max had kept them in the back of her mind nonetheless. Manticore might even have used the brothers as one of their examples on civilians that would require special handling in order to terminate. Max wouldn't put it past them.

Doesn't mean the Winchesters were a daily occurrence in her mind, though, especially after she escaped. Her memory and brain in general were tampered with, but Cindy's wasn't, and it's not her fault she doesn't remember, particularly because she was only _six_ when Dean was accused of the first murder, and barely nine when the brothers went for good on the lam.

"Sorry, O.C.," Max says. Then her brows draw together as she looks at Dean's stats and then at the wall again. "It's just—I don't know, I get a weird feeling about all this."

Cindy laughs. "I'd wonder what's wrong wit' you if you din't," she replies. "Boy's ramblin' about Hell, and now you got proof he's some kinda fine-lookin' nutjob who, what, goes knocking about graveyards? It's freaky, aiight."

"Yeah," Max agrees, "but that's not what I mean." Cindy looks at her quizzically. "I mean, if he's really some badass criminal or whatever, why's he suddenly reappearing in Seattle, looking like he's got no idea what's going on in the world, or why he's here? And, going by what the news and Logan have said, it's not like Dean was this dude who was really affected by all he did. You saw his picture, right? Seriously, what guy who's so haunted by his crimes—you can't say that nightmare wasn't real, Cin—pulls off that kind of expression to the cops? It just feels like there's something else going on here is all."

Cindy stares at Max for a few moments, and then nods slowly. "Okay, girl, you think there's somethin' not straight with all this, we'll figure it out."

Max's face is still in a frown, like she's trying to understand something for which she doesn't have all the necessary variables. Which she doesn't, and she knows it. "Well, the only way we can start is to talk to this Dean guy, see what he says," Max proposes, standing up slowly. "'S long as he doesn't try to kill me again."

Cindy follows Max's movements, setting the documents aside. Wouldn't do anyone any good if Dean thought he was only being talked to because they saw him as a criminal. He is, but they don't want him to know they're aware of it. Max speculates he's betting on that they were too young to hear what he and Sam did in the past. What he also isn't betting on, unfortunately, is that Max is damn good at getting information out of people, and even though she knows _Dean's_ public background now, that doesn't change _her_ skills.

When she walks out of Cindy's bedroom, however, she stops cold. "Girl, what—?" Cindy starts, and then halts just as Max had.

The couch is empty, and the window's open.

Dean's gone.


	7. Chapter VI: The Great Escape

A/N: Same stuff applies as in the Author's Notes chapter. Oh, and unfortunately I neither own _Supernatural_ nor _Dark Angel_. Just this.

A/N part two: Specific episodes of _Supernatural_ mentioned are: "Phantom Traveler," "The Usual Suspects," "Born Under a Bad Sign," "Tall Tales," "Heart", "Bad Day at Black Rock," "I Know What You Did Last Summer," and vaguely "Hollywood Babylon." Specific episodes of _Dark Angel_ mentioned are: "Pilot."

* * *

**Of Desire and the Status Quo**

_**Chapter VI: The Great Escape

* * *

**_

Dean's been up for a while, more or less ever since Max left Cindy's apartment, but he's an expert at faking, whether it's death, or sleep, or whatever. He wants to be able to _really_ sleep, to dream of things not godawful, but he'd rather be deprived of rest than experience another nightmare. So he waits, and he listens.

From all he'd heard, Cindy's a…an interesting person. She's also definitely not a demon, he'd discovered with a healthy amount of relief; he knew she'd heard him mumble things in his duress, and so it would only be consistent if he kept doing it. So he'd decided to whisper _Christo_, with his eyes slitted infinitesimally, to see if she flinched. She didn't. Although maybe she did peer over at him with a combination of _He's insane_ and pity. Dean despises people pitying him, but he's supposed to be asleep, so.

Despite what Max—at least that's what he'd learned from how Cindy addressed the other woman—and probably Cindy thought, Dean was somewhat conscious when Max had touched him. He's hazy on how he acted, but he remembers what she did. Remembers the slightly unsure, but also pacifying fingers through his hair and on his face, not ceasing even though Dean's damn positive he looks terrible.

Then she'd started humming, a tune he wasn't familiar with, but one of those songs whose rhythm is hard to object to. She was a little off-key, as if she didn't do anything of that sort very often, but he hadn't really cared, to be honest. Sure, his muscles were coiled ready to spring, and his head was telling him that he didn't know this woman so why the hell was he letting her practically _pet_ him, but, God help him, he didn't want her to stop.

It'd been so long since he'd actually had someone touch him so carefully and gently like that, making him feel like they wanted to take care of him—Christ, Dean'd just lost some of his manhood right there by thinking that—and he just wanted to revel in it, for only a few moments.

He'd been able to see a blurry outline of the woman, not enough to solidify details beyond that she was well-structured, but when he closed his eyes, he could pretend it was Mom and he'd just had some bad dream and she'd sing to make it all better. The illusion was far from perfect, but down in the Pit, Dean had had a lot of practice with conjuring such things in his head.

He'd gathered that Max's intentions had been to get him to calm down and fall asleep again, but he was too wired and his blood was pumping too fast for that to really happen. Nevertheless, he surrendered to Max's wishes, laid down with his head flat on the cushions, and allowed her to drape a blanket over him. It had felt uncomfortable to say the least, given that for the past hundreds and hundreds of years, the most caring he'd had was that one day where he'd not been tortured. He still didn't know why, but it wasn't like he was going to _ask_ the bastards. Maybe they'd had a day-long huddle to come up with new techniques. That was probably it.

Max had then gone over to Cindy and said a few sentences that Dean had no idea the meaning of; they didn't clarify the ones he'd heard vaguely before, that much was true. Manticore? _Dean thought he'd fought one of those before…Athens, maybe? _Barcodes? _He didn't think she was talking about the ones in supermarkets…_ Donors? _Dean's fake license says he's an organ one, but he's pretty sure that thing is gone…_ Transgenic? _Genetic engineering, right? Dean's never been much for that crap…_ Alec? Ben? Logan? _Who the fuck _are_ these people? And what were they saying about him being a friggin' _clone_?_

Dean's head had been starting to hurt more than it already was, and, truth be told, he was kind of glad when Max left. He had always liked silence. Oh, he loves his music, and the television, and the sounds the girls made when they…er, forget that last, but he also treasures the rare moments he gets of pure quiet, and for a few minutes after Max had hurried out, he was granted it.

He tried not to flinch or squirm when he felt Cindy sit across from him and stare, and even more when she removed his shoes—_Woman, leave my fucking boots alone!_ he'd wanted to yell—and it was difficult, but he managed. He half-expected a person of her feistiness to go and throw a rave or something in the apartment, but she hadn't. Instead, she'd sat nearly on top of him (all right, so maybe she'd just leaned against his shins, but that was almost the same thing, right?) and pulled out a _book_, of all things. He didn't know which one, but she'd seemed engrossed in it, and was mainly quiet, so he didn't complain.

He still made little mumbling noises every now and then to keep up the charade, but he was more fascinated with how…_normal_ the chick seemed. If it were him, well, he'd shoot first and ask questions later—and he would've, if he hadn't felt so freakin' weak—and not embrace a full-on stranger like they're lifelong friends, but then again, his day hadn't exactly been standard, so he should've anticipated as much.

Dean had only had a blessed forty-five or so minutes of this silence before he heard the sashaying footsteps that he imagined Max would make. As his lack of luck would have it, Cindy closes her book, gets off of the couch, and answers the door. At least she's considerate enough to speak in undertones; he appreciates it.

Dean doesn't possess any powers, he's not in tune with any ESP shit, but Max is emanating such tension that he can sense it, and he knows he's in for a whopper of an inadvertent eavesdropping. (Really, Max _and_ Cindy think the latter's bedroom cuts off sound? As if.)

And he's right. The minute he hears Max say _Number forty-four, Cin_ in that tired voice, and the rustle of a lot of papers, Dean gets the unwelcome feeling that he is about to hear something about himself that he isn't proud of. Then, of _course_ Cindy needs Max to spell everything out for her, to relay it to Dean's not-sleeping form.

He winces as Max discloses all his supposed crimes to Cindy, and can imagine both of their faces: they're housing who they think is a murderer and psychopath, and oh God what are they going to do with him? Dean's pretty sure they have no idea he's a hunter, and that his "crimes" helped the very public who wanted—and possibly still want—to skewer him, but he can't help but hold it against them, just a bit.

Dean clenches his jaw and opens his eyes. He's fucking sick and tired of being convicted of felonies committed by a shapeshifter, or werewolf, or spirit, or wendigo, or dirty cop, or what the fuck ever else, and he's not going to stay around and listen to Max and Cindy try and think how much they noticed when Dean was on the news. Because that's what he's deducing: Max is, after all, blithely asking Cindy if she remembers _those guys that everyone went on about how freakish and cultish their crimes were_, and that freakin' _Sam and Dean_ were the ones involved in _Devil worship and black magic and shit like that_.

Well, screw it, Dean's not going to take it. It's not because he's being a pansy ass and doesn't want to hear himself being blacklisted—he couldn't care less about what people think of him, and besides, it's Sam's business to be a wuss. Dean won't take it because he doesn't want to be _feared_ and _shunned_. Not by these people, anyhow. They're not supernatural, and he's almost certain they're not trying to kill him just yet, and he won't just throw that away. They haven't done anything to him so far, and although he'd like nothing more than to have the upper hand in this, to have a straight flush and not a fucking high card like he has now, he won't have them accuse him based off of prejudiced and presumptuous reports.

So he does what he's been trained to do since the age of four. He escapes. He stifles his pain and the accompanying want to groan in agony, and stands up, leaving the blanket haphazard on the couch. He brushes a hand through his hair subconsciously and wishes he had his pendant, but there's no use now ruminating on a piece of jewelry, even if it's practically a part of him, even if it's the only tangible connection he has to Sam.

A careful glance at where Cindy and Max's voices are muffled through the wooden door, and Dean shrugs on his boots, soundlessly making his way over to the window. It's sealed shut with mold and congealed _something_—which is nasty, but he doesn't have time to question it—so he reaches into his jeans pocket, both relieved and shocked to find his pocketknife is still there. Flipping it open like greeting an old friend, he severs the paint easily and pulls up the window. It creaks a little, but Max and Cindy don't notice.

With gracefulness most people wouldn't expect from a guy who looks like Dean, he steps out onto the scaffolding, edging his way sideways so he's out of sight of Cindy's apartment window. Then he leans over the side, trying to see if there's a ladder on the framework, but there's not. Sighing, and hoping his arm muscles aren't completely useless, he crouches and grips onto the freezing metal, and then drops, landing very _un_gracefully on the level below, but alive.

Knowing he has to do this five more times, Dean prepares himself, and agonizingly climbs his way down the building, thinking he's way fucking cooler than Peter Parker, and it's already common knowledge he's Batman, _so there_. Plus, neither of those guys went to Hell, so point for Dean for surviving. (_Ish_, he thinks with a shuddering flashback.)

By the time he gets to the bottom of the scaffolding, he's breathing as hard as when he'd awakened to find Sam _gone just gone_, and hadn't found him until a solid freakin' week later. (He's still pissed he didn't pick up on the fact that Sam was full-on possessed right away, but that's really neither here nor there.)

He doesn't know where he's supposed to go from here; he hadn't thought anything through farther than just needing to get out of Cindy's apartment. A tiny part of him is wishing he'd stayed, because now that he's out, the colors around him seem too bright, too saturated, like a camera lens with overloaded contrast. The sky, which Dean had so been ecstatic to see—and, okay, he still is—magnifies the soggy light of the sun, the rays laser-focused through the water droplets.

His pupils contract as he squints against the whole environment, and he looks at the ground, at the worn leather of his boots. That's a little better. Still pondering his unfavorable position, Dean feels a half-familiar sensation in his stomach, a sort of somersaulting, vocal awareness. It takes him more than a few seconds to realize what should have been like first nature to him: hunger.

Dean almost musters enough of himself to laugh at that. It's sometimes fuzzy, his life from before Hell, but he remembers vividly how much he used to just _eat_, all those caramels and taquitos and triple hamburgers and greasy pizza, not to mention the hundreds of beers, purple nurples (he never did find out what those were…), Backdrafts, all of it.

He supposes he should also remember the feeling from when he was Down Under, given that the demons had thought it'd be _super fun_ to make him have basic bodily needs for a while but deprive him of them. Those decades where every day felt like he hadn't eaten in sixty…well, Dean never accused them of not knowing things about their prisoners, his black hole of an appetite falling neatly into that category. He's not even going to go into the fact that, in all those years, he hadn't had sex _once_. Not that he would've, considering supernatural lovers were Sam's gig, but, come on, it's the _principle_ of the thing.

* * *

Max sits down on the old, worn couch and presses the heels of her hands into her eyes, making her black vision explode with stars for a couple seconds. "This is _so_ not good," she states redundantly.

"Take a breath, sugar," Original Cindy placates, handing Max a cup of warm coffee. "Mystery Man ain't your responsibility."

"Of course he is!" Max objects hotly. "Cin, he's walkin' around with Ben and Alec's face and mumbling about freaking _Hell_, whatever the fuck any of that means, he practically broke my wrist back there, and now he's missing. From your apartment, the one you led him into because he was so confused he made Sketchy riding high sound normal."

Cindy lets this slide, even the bit about Sketchy, although in no other way could she really compare the two guys. Sitting down next to Max, she puts an arm around her shoulder, patting her friend gently.

"Come on, boo," she says softly, nudging Max with her knee. "What are you doin'? Why you jus' sittin' 'round here feelin' sorry for yo'self? 'S not the Max Guevara I know."

Max looks over at Cindy, and for a moment simply appears like she thinks the other woman's certifiably nuts, but then her face relaxes a bit, and she even grants Cindy a small smile. "You're right," she admits, abruptly standing up off of the couch. "Can't be that hard to find him, I mean, he's—"

She cuts off her words mid-sentence, her anxious expression replaced with dismalness again. "What is it?" Cindy asks.

"I don't know anything about the guy," Max says, looking like she wants to sit back down next to Cindy.

"He's hot boy and Ben's clone, ain't he?" Cindy asks, and Max nods, even though the "clone" part of it she isn't sure on. "Well then, he'll like the same places, won' he?"

Max shrugs. "I dunno," she says. "I really don't know. I mean, it's not like he was awake enough to tell us anything about himself, and no one we know remembers much about him from when he was hot news except for kind of Logan. And who knows how truthful any of _that_ information was. I got nothing, Cindy."

"You talk to Alec yet?" Cindy inquires, watching Max pace around the small apartment.

Max scoffs, rolling her eyes. "Oh yeah, that would go over well," she says sarcastically. "'Hey Alec, guess what? You got another lookalike, an Ordinary this time! But don't worry, 'cause he's a _serial killer_ Ordinary. Don't _think_ he's crazy, but he could be. And by the way, I don't suppose you know much about his murder spree back in '08?' No way, Cindy. Alec would think I've lost my mind."

Cindy's eyebrows rise expectantly. "Since when d'you care 'bout what Alec thinks of you?"

"I don't," Max objects instantly. "I just…it's just too much. We've barely got Terminal City functional, let alone livable, hardly got a chain of command intact, and now I gotta add this? I don't want to bring Alec into it. Can you just go with me on this? Please?"

Cindy sighs heavily, not seeing virtually any merit in what Max is proposing, but knowing her friend isn't going to change her mind. "Aiight, Max, I got your back."

"Thanks."

"So, what d'you want to do?" Cindy asks, taking control of the situation. "You wanna get 'im back or what?"

Max levels her with a glare. "No, I want to just let him roam around Seattle," she answers sarcastically. "He can't've gotten far, right? We can still find him."

Cindy looks at Max skeptically. "You sure?" she asks, then at Max's silent threat of bodily harm, hastily continues, "Just sayin'. But if you think there's a way to track him…"

Max sighs. "You're right," she accedes. "Guess we'll have to do it the hard way."

Despite her impatience about everything, Max takes out her cell phone to call Logan again, see if he found anything else; Cindy is relegated to using her better people skills—read: better human perception abilities than Max—to try and see if she can think of where Dean could go.

Sighing, Cindy walks over to her open window. Sticking her head out, she studies the street left and right, halfheartedly given that she sincerely doubts Dean would have just hung out. Like she'd expected, there's no sight of him, no sign that he'd even been there except for some of the dirt on the scaffolding being smudged off in the shape of fingers. Which isn't surprising; Cindy had guessed as much that he'd escape down that way. Still, regardless of her dubiety of Dean's path, she still wishes he would be just leaning against the wall like a smartass idiot.

So, instead of locating him easily, Cindy sits down on the couch that Dean had occupied not but ten minutes ago, staring at the stucco wall across from her. For the first time in a long time, Cindy finds herself at a complete loss. Sometimes she's a little off-centered, but most of the time, she's pretty okay with even a totally screwed up situation. But this time…well. She can honestly, and without too much pride lost, say that she has no fucking idea what to do.

She hasn't had any experience with things like this. And to add to that, Max is practically _expecting_ her to know Dean inside and out. When, in actuality, Max knows more than she does. And sure, Cindy's curious as hell, but now Dean's gone, and she doesn't know what she's supposed to tell her friend, who has a very freaky fascination with the man. Cindy doesn't swing that way, and even though she thinks Dean's got the deep end of the gene pool going for him, she's not quite certain the dude's not in the shallow end on the mental front.

She won't tell Max this, of course. She's already recognizing the signs: Dean's becoming Max's next abandoned puppy. Sure, Cindy thinks Max very philanthropic in that regard, but her decisions to take in almost any transgenic—starting with Joshua, then expanding to Alec…then Mole…then everyone else—aren't ignorable. Now, the way she's agitated over Dean's disappearance, not to mention the lengths to which she went to find out barebones details that just ended up confusing the whole thing even more kind of worries Cindy. And yeah, fine, she wants to get Dean back, if nothing else than because she's inquisitive, but she's just not sure she wants to go as far as she knows Max intends to.

But, she hasn't been best friends with Max for this long without living with that particular—and for the most part not bad—trait of hers. (And, purely selfishly, she kinda wants to have bragging rights just in case she ever gets into an argument with someone over who's led the cooler life. That person, or Cindy, who will have helped find a possibly ex-half of a brother con man team who _quite possibly_ died thirteen years ago, but has now reappeared and is mumbling about having spent some time in Hell. Add to that Dean's undeniable sex appeal, and she's pretty sure she'd win.)

It's then that Cindy feels her brain has lit the proverbial lightbulb. "Max!" she calls into the apartment. A moment later—and quickly enough to where Cindy's wondering if she hadn't blurred—her friend comes into the room, her cell phone still in hand and Logan's slightly muted voice wondering what happened.

"What?" Max asks, the cell phone obviously already forgotten.

"I think I know where to find Dean."

"Where?" Max asks, more urgently and now completely ignoring Logan's continued rumblings.

Cindy looks awkward for a minute, realizing that she probably should have had a contingency plan, or at least figured out a less blunt way to put her suggestion. "Um…" she starts out eloquently, "Sam's?"

Max stares at her, a small frown between her eyebrows. "Sam?" she repeats, like she was asked to solve pi. "As in Sam _Winchester_?"

"No, Uncle Sam," Cindy retorts facetiously. "Yeah, sugar, Sam _Winchester_. Deano's brother."

"Okay…one tiny problem with that, Cin," Max says slowly, regarding Cindy like she's lost one too many brain cells. Cindy looks right back, standing her ground. "_We don't know where Sam is_. And how the hell did you come up with that Dean would even _be_ there?"

Original Cindy McEachin isn't a fool. Anyone can see that. She's used to Max's questioning in lots of things, but when Cindy sets her mind to something, she fucking sets her mind to it. "Come on, girl," Cindy says curtly. "Sam is Dean's bro, ain't he? I mean, wasn't finding yo' brothers and sisters the first thing you tried to do? Poor dude's prob'ly lookin' everywhere for the guy."

Max purses her full lips at her friend, hands on her hips, but doesn't say anything for a while, Cindy almost literally watching the wheels in her hyperdrive mind turning. "All right, maybe you got a point," she concedes, sitting down on the coffee table. After all, it _is_ what she did. And she doesn't know Dean very well at all, but she's gathered that he's persistent as all hell. "But how are we supposed to _find_ Sam? We don't even know if he's alive. Or…you know…sane."

Cindy can see it in the suddenly darkened tint of Max's eyes that her girl's thinking of Ben, thinking of how her arguably favorite brother's brain just stopped functioning rationally. How she'd had to kill him. Cindy has a gut feeling that that might just be a reason she's even going along with Cindy's idea; more than that, Cindy knows her idea is a damn good one. Though Max does have a point: how _would_ they find him?

"Well…" Cindy begins, her own thoughts circulating and remembering previous conversations. "Why don't we ask yo' boy?"

"Alec?"

Cindy raises an eyebrow, before correcting, "No, Logan."

"How could Logan help?" Max inquires curiously.

"He jacked those databases, right? The cops? And the papers?" Cindy asks rhetorically. Max nods. "Why don't he jus' look at that weird shit's been happening the past years? Even if Dean was gone, somethin' tells me his brother wouldn't go down quiet."

Max processes this, and then a small, sad smile comes over her face. Because the thing is, it's _exactly_ what a sibling would do. Granted, Max doubts her situation was anything resembling whatever Sam and Dean Winchester's was (for which she doesn't even have the vaguest idea), but still. Revenge, after looking for her siblings, was the first thing on her mind. She knows not one thing about Sam's personality, but if he's got half the care for Dean that she has for her siblings, then Cindy's suggestion has a whole lot more weight.

"Okay," Max agrees, standing up with conviction now that she has a clear warpath. "Let's go find Sam Winchester."


	8. Chapter VII: Return in a New Alliance

A/N: Same stuff applies as in the Author's Notes chapter. Oh, and unfortunately I neither own _Supernatural_, nor _Dark Angel_. Just this.

A/N part two: Specific episodes of _Supernatural_ mentioned are: "Nightmare," and kind of "Ghostfacers." Specific episodes of _Dark Angel_ mentioned are: "Bag 'Em."

* * *

**Of Desire and the Status Quo**

_**Chapter VII: Return in a New Alliance

* * *

**_

"Let me get this straight," Logan's saying from his desk chair, looking at Max and Original Cindy's earnest faces. "You want me to locate, to an exact address, the brother of a guy that _may_ be famed Dean Winchester, looking fifteen years younger than he should."

"No," Cindy says immediately, watching Logan's expression with amusement. "Just thirteen."

Max is a little more forgiving. "Not to an _exact_ address, if you can't find it," she says. "Alec and I can cover a perimeter if we need to." Logan's still incredulous face causes her to continue hastily, "But yes. We're pretty sure Dean will try to get to Sam."

"Max." Logan removes his glasses and leans forward, the signs Max knows all too well to mean he's trying to talk sense into her, sense to which they both fully know she won't pay any regard. "Look, I want to help, I really do…"

Cindy and Max exchange a glance, both in doubt. Mainly because if Logan doesn't like _Alec_, a member of a people Logan'd pretty much sworn to defend, what are the chances he'd actually like Dean, an Ordinary? Especially given Dean's…_bumpy_ past.

"I _do_!" Logan protests with a flush, thinking the same thing Max and Cindy were. "But it's not as simple as just Googling 'Sam Winchester address.' You do know how hard it was to find them before? They slipped the police every single time!"

Both women's faces sober appropriately, realizing that they don't even know what _Googling_ is, let alone know what Logan is referring to. They know the basics, but…they just weren't around like Logan was. "Logan, you can find anything," Max wheedles, staring doe-eyed at him.

"It's not just their ability to wriggle through the cracks," he sighs. "The Pulse wiped everything that wasn't archived. There's just—there's already not a lot about them, particularly now."

"I'm aware," Max objects hotly, and she is. Very much so.

"No, you aren't," Logan counters, with more vehemence than any of the three expected.

He's apologetic, but they just can't fathom what he can when it comes to the Winchester brothers. He rubs his eyes until he sees spots behind his lids, suddenly fatigued. He's almost wishing Max had him back looking for her siblings. At least then he wasn't ninety-nine point nine percent sure he wasn't going to find anything else about them. With Sam and Dean…he does. He may be a cyber hacker, but that's easy, given the day and age. But if police back in the good old days, when everything worked, couldn't find them, how could Logan?

* * *

For Dean's part, he had set out to do just the thing Cindy and Max had presumed. His only problem is, of course, the fact that he has even _less_ of an idea where Sam might be than Logan. Not only is it that he's found Seattle has changed tenfold since the last time he'd been through there, but also it's apparently 2021—a truth Dean's still having trouble working through—and while there are some motels around, Dean can't see Sam staying in any of them. Primarily since there's pretty much zero security around; although in their better days they didn't exactly have or need much in the way of policing (a sawed-off and machete were really all the security they required), there was at least _some_ sense of decorum. Now, though…well, privacy would be a privilege.

Dean does know Sam's alive, however, and that's a small comfort. He can't explain how he knows, he just does. He can't tell if Sam's actually in Seattle proper or not, but at least he can be somewhat satisfied in that his little brother—big brother? Hell, there's a mind-bender that he really doesn't want to tackle right now—is still living and breathing. Dean doesn't know what he'd do if he came back from Down Under just to find out that Sam had died. Or worse, taken his own life. Dean's stomach rolls over at the thought.

Adding to his already phenomenally shitty day, Dean's resigned himself to being lost. The last intersection he'd reached was First and Valley…well, he _thinks _that's what it was. It was at least First. And there was the _sign_ for Valley on the ground…

Ah, shit. He would like to say something cavalier and manly, like his internal GPS is doing just fine, thank you, and he'll have himself on the right track in no time, but. He's just too damn tired to adopt his hardass shell. He's gonna go with a solid: _I'm lost as all hell._

He's also feeling a little nauseas at the moment, overcome with a sudden vertigo, the cause of which he can only dismally attribute to that pesky little fire pit he'd been ejected from recently. Rolling with the punches, as is pretty much Dean's motto, he climbs up onto what he's presuming used to be a full wall, but has now been reduced to more of a segmented ledge. He brings his knees up to his chest, breathing in heady, foul air.

He looks straight ahead, the decimated downtown of Seattle greeting him as he depressingly recognizes a landmark or two; Lake Washington is bleak and sluggish now, Quest Field's notable design now in crumbles, half the stadium seats obliterated with disrepair. It's not like Dean's ever been a huge football fan himself—sure, he'd throw a ball around now and again, usually at Sam's censure (and head), but he was never really _into_ it—but still. The Seahawks were big news up in the Pacific Northwest.

"Guess not anymore," Dean mutters darkly, feeling another wave of dismay flood over him. He wants to tell his body to shove the fuck off, to quit with the sorrow vibes ('cause really, _Sam_ does emo, not Dean), but the masochism that he's comprised of—in addition to zilch self-esteem, but _that's_ a whole 'nother saga in and of itself—is satisfied that he's feeling something other than, you know, agonizing pain.

He's still not feeling fantastic as he continues staring, and when he hears a rustle from somewhere behind him, he assumes it's just some abandoned soda can or something blowing in the frigid wind. At least until the sixth sense he'd developed in over two decades of hunting supernatural fiends flares up. Dean's not been hunting in a long time, and when he was in Hell, the demons pretty much came right at him, but the sense he has is innate; he'd always considered himself better at it than Sam, anyhow. Plus, now that his ears are focused more definitively, he hears another scuffing, the same kind as before, and now he's positive it's not a soda can, but rather a set of Belleville 500 USMC combat boots. He'd know the thudding, thick leathered sound anywhere. Including in the middle of some kind of post-disaster metropolis.

Putting aside whatever bodily discomfort he may have been in a moment ago—another side effect of his previous line of work, that setting feelings aside—Dean's off the ledge and sprinting over to the alleyway in an instant, his arm pinning someone to the wall by the neck.

"Who are you?" Dean demands, his voice remaining coarse and husky from disuse.

He's ready to repeat his statement, maybe rough up the guy a little—Dean's _not_ in the mood for beating around the bush—when he truly looks at whom he's halfway strangling. Frowning now in confusion, he finds it's rather a kid than the adult he'd been expecting, a kid that has to be no more than sixteen or seventeen if Dean has to guess. He hadn't been wrong about the army boots, though: although the kid is dressed fairly simply in some light cargo pants and a black sweatshirt, the boots are fitted, sized just right for their owner. Which means that he'd either really lucked upon that size, or…

"What the hell?" Dean wonders aloud, not sure if he really wants to know why someone not even out of puberty is in ownership of personal army gear.

Knowing he can't exactly get anywhere with this by having the kid still held against the wall, Dean loosens his grip, dropping his arm. The moment he does, however, he realizes it was the wrong thing to do—in a movement that's a total blur to him, _Dean's_ suddenly the one against the wall, a few inches above the ground, the kid's face eerily neutral, though it says nothing for his iron grip.

But Dean didn't get out of Hell just so he could die in some back alley. He's not up to his full strength yet, but his adrenal glands are doing just fine, allowing their organic upper to make up for the muscle degeneration. The kid has his arm against Dean's throat, but he hadn't secured Dean's legs, so Dean makes use of it and kicks out as hard as he's able, his own CAT-booted feet making a hollow sound as they lash out against their adversary's softer ribs. There's an audible _oof_, but it doesn't stop the almost immediate punch that comes Dean's way. He ducks, his reflexes being another of the innate gifts he possesses, the fist hitting worn brick instead of his face; he counters the strike with a hit of his own.

The kid dodges it as well, and uses Dean's momentum to flip him over, slamming Dean's body onto the pavement. Dean's winded, but he's up as quickly as ever just the same. He knows he could probably beat the kid, but there's a look in his ice-colored eyes that sends Dean the signal it'd be a hell of a fight. Despite his more scrawny than burly stature, Dean knows firsthand that the kid does have some muscle behind his blows. More than that, Dean doesn't like to, in general, throw himself into a brawl if he doesn't have to. (And on a more ego-driven level, even if he did beat the kid, he's sure he'd still feel like a douche for beating up a teenager, regardless of how _Fight Club_ the guy seems to be.)

"Just want to talk, kid," Dean says, keeping a good two or three yards from the boy. Come to think of it, that gleam that Dean'd observed now is getting kind of creepy how calculating it is.

Right before the kid does that blurry thing again and punches Dean's lights out (possibly for good this time), he stops, his fist six inches from Dean's face. He cocks his head, and his expression morphs into one of hazy recognition. "Hey, I know you," he says, slowly relaxing his hand and peering closer at Dean.

"'Scuse me?" Dean asks, taking another step back. He takes in the look of comprehension, and realizes it just about mirrors the one Cindy had worn earlier. _Oh, please, _Dean begs to himself, _don't you also call me—_

"Alec, right?"

Dean heaves a sigh, and rolls his shoulders, already feeling their tightness. "Okay, is there some kind of poster telling everyone to call me that?" Dean scowls, staring at the adolescent. "'Cause I'm getting real sick of it real fast."

If possible, the kid looks more confused than Dean is. "No, I'm sure of it," he says, still frowning. "You were with that woman—"

"Hey, bud, that's not gonna narrow it—"

"Max," the kid finishes, ignoring Dean's interruption.

"I don't know—wait, what?" Dean halts, the kid's words catching up with him. Normally, the name wouldn't mean anything (besides maybe that suicidal psychic back in Saginaw), but in this case…well, it's something anyway.

"Max," the kid repeats, still eyeing Dean like he knows him but is now fearing Dean may have lost his marbles. "And you—you helped us escape."

Dean pulls in another lungful of air, breathes it out, rubs a calloused hand over his now bruised face. "Okay, that _aside_," Dean hedges, "what's your name, kid?"

To Dean's surprise, the smallest bit of a blush goes over the boy's face, something between sheepish and embarrassed. "Zero, sir," he replies.

Dean blinks, for the moment ignoring the "sir" part, and paying more attention, instead, to the rest of the response. "What are you talking about, 'Zero'?" he inquires sharply.

"It's my name."

"The hell it is," Dean snaps, thinking the boy's some ghetto reject or something. "You got a real name. What is it?"

To add to Dean's already impressively flummoxed state, the kid's jaw clenches, and his eyes downcast. "X6-852, sir."

"Huh?"

"You asked for my 'real name,'" the kid says. "That's my designation."

"Oh, for Christ's fucking sake!" Dean exclaims, his nerves already frayed and dangerously close to completely unraveling. The kid jerks, surprised by Dean's reaction. Dean looks around, and finds a small pile of crates a few feet away, pulls two over and points at one. "Sit," he commands, and the kid obeys.

Taking his own seat on the deceptively firm box, Dean leans forward. He's had enough confusion for one day. And if finding out what in the world is going on with this kid's nominal crisis will curtail some of that, well, Dean'll take it. It's already going somewhat well—at least Dean's nose isn't broken.

"First thing I think we need to get straight is that I'm not this Alec dude," Dean says, clearing his throat past the persistent pseudo-laryngitis. "I don't know who he is or why people keep thinking he's me, but he's not. I'm Dean Winchester. Not Alec. Got it?"

The kid stares at Dean for a few seconds, but then nods slowly, his dark, unkempt hair falling into his eyes that, for a split second, reminds Dean wholly of Sam. "Yes, sir," he says.

"And that 'sir' thing has got to stop," Dean comments, putting whatever reason there was for it aside for now. He could deal with that later. "Now, what's your _real_ name?"

For the first time, Dean sees true anger flare up in the kid; before, he'd just been as riled up as anyone in a fistfight, but now he showed actual irritation. "I told you," he snaps, and for the life of him, Dean doesn't know why he feels the urge to smile. "My name is Zero."

"Guess you're going with the _Holes_ theme then, eh?" Dean jokes, his jest falling flat. "Okay, you're Zero. Wanna tell me how you got that? I doubt your parents gave it to you."

Dean doesn't fail to notice the dark shadow that falls over the kid's—oh, all right, _Zero's_—expression at the mention of parents, but he doesn't comment on it just yet. "Max," he answers simply. "I…I mouthed off. She didn't like it. So, Zero."

Dean chuckles, both because of how _uncreative_ people of this time apparently are, and also because of how weird it is to see the kid _okay_ with it. "All right," Dean begins, "and you were totally square with that?"

"I disrespected a superior officer," Zero says. "It was deserved."

"So what if you were a smartass?" Dean objects with a snort. "Zero means nothing. No one's nothing, kid. Understand?"

Zero looks at Dean a little differently, like Dean's not the guy he'd originally thought, but someone entirely separate. Like, Dean would bet, he's actually _Dean_, and not whoever _Alec_ is. Dean's pretty okay with that. His sense of self-worth is kind of in the sewers, but the one thing he is totally comfortable in saying is that there's only one Dean Winchester. And he's a scary son of a bitch, damn it.

"Super," Dean says succinctly, sitting straight. "Now, what the hell are you doing on the streets? You're what, sixteen?"

Zero shrugs, a little uncomfortably, not quite meeting Dean's eyes. Even though Zero knows he's superlative to Dean in terms of fighting skills and intelligence, he can't help but feel like Dean's that sympathetic older brother who'll reprimand you, but do it with your best interests in mind and without judgment. It only adds to it that Dean reminds him of his CO back at Manticore; not just in terms of looks—that rugged, outdoorsy appearance—but in attitude as well. So even though Zero's been trained to be suspicious of absolutely everyone, he realizes he's beginning to fall prey to Dean's unintentional charm.

"I'm not entirely sure," Zero answers with a frown. "But I think I'm around there."

Dean nods in faux understanding. "So, what, '91, then?" he asks, going for the small talk approach in order to not scare off the kid that, for all his prowess at throwing down, looks like a skittish kitten.

Zero cocks his head to the side, confused. "Erm—no, sir. 2004, if I'm the age I think," he replies.

Dean heaves a deep sigh, pinching his nose with his fingers, his eyes scrunched closed. Zero knows the stance well—Dean's trying not to completely break down. He's not sure why Dean's reacting the way he is, but he won't call him out on it. "Right, 'course," Dean responds finally. "So weird."

"Sir?"

"Never mind," Dean brushes off, not wanting to get into something with this kid that he's not even figured out completely himself. "Anyway. That streets thing? I mean, judging by this damn town it looks like it's a regular thing, but…you're just a kid…"

Zero's inadvertently touched, that strange warm feeling that he got when Ralph would hug him for no reason, or Bugler would want him to make up a contraband bedtime story. Normally, he'd think Dean was just trying to get him to spill his guts, but his over-accurate eyes and brain see it for what it truly is: concern. Genuine concern and regret for someone he just met and who very possibly could have broken his neck with nary an effort. He thinks Dean wouldn't be terrible at being considered an X-series with how legit his expressions are.

Which causes Zero to remember that Dean's not the guy he met so long ago who was _actually_ an X5, and that just confounds him again. But he goes with the flow. "Manticore burned down and we had to go to ground," Zero explains. "My unit and I went up to Canada with some fake passports and ID."

"Manticore?" Dean repeats puzzlingly. "Isn't that some kind of animal?"

Zero almost laughs at the crude irony, but doesn't. Primarily for the fact that Dean looks completely clueless. "It's a—no offense, sir" Dean shoots him a glare, and Zero corrects, "_Dean_, but how do you not know about Manticore? It was all over the news. Still is, I think."

It's Dean's turn to gain a dark expression, and it immediately intrigues Zero's interest, which is already higher than normal given his feline DNA. "I haven't been—I wasn't in a place to pick up a signal," is all that Dean offers, deciding it's going to have to be good enough for the X6.

Still, Zero searches Dean's features, looking for some telltale tic that would indicate Dean's dishonesty. But he finds none. Not a trace. But just because Dean isn't lying doesn't mean Zero _wants_ to talk about Manticore. Unlike most of the Manticore creations, he'd hated it, still does for that matter. Yet he feels compelled to enlighten this stranger-who-doesn't-look-like-a-stranger. Hell if he knows why.

"It's an experimental facility," Zero answers hesitantly. "Genetic engineering."

Dean looks Zero up and down, he supposes to find some kind of indicator, a tail, maybe. "Wait, you're a—I mean, you're—"

Zero's mouth quirks at seeing Dean trying to work through it all, but is also getting a little mental whiplash with how quickly Dean's switching emotions. It's giving him a headache. The only one he hasn't seen Dean show is weakness; which almost worries him despite that he doesn't know Dean much more than that bum he saw a few streets back, simply because the way the guy looks…well, he'd expect more pitifulness from him.

"Don't strain yourself," Zero retorts deadpan, causing Dean a beat of silence before he chuckles just a bit. It gives Zero a surge of pleasure. "I'm not one of the ones that's too animal or anything, I'm human except for a few changes to my DNA."

Zero expects Dean to regain his look of dubiety or disgust—like, sadly, a lot of people tend to get—but he doesn't. He looks…intrigued. Impressed. "That would've _so_ come in handy," Dean remarks, thinking of the hundreds of fights with evil bastards in which he and Sam got beaten to a pulp. If what this Zero guy is saying is true, and the way he fought was no lie, Dean pretty much wishes he or Sammy had had a little genetic engineering help themselves.

"What?" Zero asks, unable to read minds regardless of his improvements.

Dean struggles with himself, which only serves to catapult Zero's curiosity. "My brother and I, we—" his voice breaks on the word "brother," but he only clears his ever-present scratchy voice and continues, "we were, uh, we were hunters."

"Like, what, deer?" Zero inquires, not seeing what the big deal is. What, is Dean some crazy environmentalist that despises hurting all things animal or something? Somehow, he doesn't strike him as the philanthropist type.

"Not quite, kid," Dean responds, almost laughing at the naïveté of Zero's questioning. He may claim that he's some kind of Superman, but he obviously still contains that sort of childlike inquisitiveness. It heals Dean a little, that kids could still have the kind of innocence that Dean and Sam were so deprived of. "I don't think you'd believe me if I told you."

Zero stares aghast at Dean, temporarily silenced. "Are you kidding?" Zero exclaims. "I'm someone who was built in a test tube and mixed with animal DNA!"

This time, Dean actually does let out a laugh, a real, if self-deprecating, one. "We hunted…" For a moment, Zero actually believed Dean would tell him the answer. In fact, Dean opened his mouth and started to say something, which Zero presumes is the real thing. But, at the last minute, Dean pauses, and his shoulders slump, making him look not like the handsome twenty-something badass, but instead like someone who lost everything they had. Zero, of course, hasn't the slightest clue what it means, but he feels sorry for Dean nonetheless.

"Forget it," says Zero, avoiding the awkward yet sad situation. Clearing his throat, he alternatively remarks, "So anyway, what exactly are you doing here? I told you my reason; it's only fair."

Dean wants to give the adage of "Life isn't fair," but he knows he always hated that copout, and though he doesn't know Zero, he's not going to demean him like he's eight. "Let's just say I scraped out of a really shitty environment," Dean says, and he's pretty sure his understatement of the fucking millennium comes through in his voice. "But I don't really know how. Still trying to figure that out."

"Can I help?" Zero asks, getting excited that he might be able to actually do something besides wandering around aimlessly like he had been.

Dean gives the younger man a little smile. "I don't think so," he replies halfheartedly. "I think it's something I have to do myself. You wouldn't understand." He sees Zero begin to bristle and become indignant, and so hurries on, "It's nothing against you, man. It's just a really long story, and I don't think I can explain it very well."

"Try!" Zero protests, feeling for one of the first times like he's just a normal, persistent teenager and not a manufactured, true blue Manticore soldier. It makes him feel better.

Dean chuckles, seeing a bit of himself in Zero. The stubborn ass part, anyhow. He relates Zero's persistence also to Max and Cindy's; yet, at least Zero is addressing Dean directly and not going behind his back to look at his totally bogus police record, looking at him like he's really the mindless serial killer the authorities had made him out to be. Zero's approaching Dean man-to-man, asking for _Dean's_ version of his story instead of a third party's. True, Dean's damn sure that Zero's probably just sticking around because he has nothing better to do (and Dean remains suspicious about that), but still. It's been a while since he's had human—or mostly human, as the case may be—contact.

"I'm trying to find my brother," Dean says finally. "I don't know where he is."

"What, you have some falling out or something?" Zero inquires.

Dean shakes his head painfully. "Not quite. It's more…we were separated. I just need to find him is all."

"Part of that 'it's too complicated' crap?"

"Pretty much," Dean affirms. Of course, "complicated" is also a massive understatement, but it regardless encompasses it well enough. "I just don't know how to go about it. Whatever the fuck happened to this city basically nixes any chance of doing so easily. I mean, I haven't seen one fuckin' computer anywhere."

Zero peers at Dean sharply. The way Dean had phrased that spoke of him not knowing about the Pulse. How could he not? Zero feels another headache coming on. "You mean the Pulse?" he asks.

Dean shrugs, the term being the same as the bartender a few hours ago had used. Something about an electro-whatever. Dean knows what it would do, given that he can build a mean electromagnet that can wipe out an entire room of computers and video cameras, but one that's big enough to wipe out the entire United States'? Even _Dean_ isn't that technologically talented. Needless to say, he'd wager it was some terrorist strike, and judging by the even worse economy than when he'd died, the U.S. hadn't been able to retaliate as of yet. He hopes there won't be another insurgent attack anytime soon. That would really ruin a day that's already fucked up.

"Yeah, sure, whatever," Dean replies. Suppressing his pride for a few seconds, Dean decides to take a plunge. "Okay. I'm definitely going to regret this, but…you really want to help out, kid?"

Zero's face lights up so much that Dean's again reminded of Sam when he'd come upon the possibility of researching something, even himself when he got the chance to get something on the wrong end of his shotgun or, better yet, his MSG3 sniper rifle. "What do you need me to do?" Zero asks fervently.

"Are there any cell phone companies that survived this Pulse thing?" Dean questions. "Best bet, I think, would be to track Sammy's cell."

"GPS?" Zero scoffs. "Yeah, right. Cell towers and companies lost their records. There's some that rebuilt themselves, but I doubt any of them have reliable tracking anymore."

"Damn it," Dean mutters angrily. This whole primitive city thing is really beginning to piss him the hell off. "All right. Is there a way we can get a hold of some newspapers? There might be some signs of—erm…there might be some stuff in there that could be useful."

Zero's eyebrows rise up at Dean's fumbling, but he doesn't say anything about it. He's already pushing his luck with Dean actually allowing him to help. And plus, Zero hadn't told him much about his own past, especially about the Canada escapades, so it's really only fair. "Well," Zero thinks, imagining the city's layout in his head, "there's a paper mill not too far from here that I think keeps some of the old newspapers to make them into other stuff. We could jack some from there, maybe."

"Super," Dean agrees, perusing the area around him and finding the building Zero was referring to. Getting up from the box with his bones and muscles shouting at him, he begins walking towards it, not looking to see if Zero's following, but hearing once more the army boots.

* * *

Three hours and countless, mostly ripped newspapers later finds the two men in an abandoned warehouse a few blocks from the paper mill, the papers scattered everywhere. Zero looks down at Dean's figure, which is passed out cold on the cement floor with a paper still in his hands, as if he's in a presidential suite, Zero surprising himself at the enveloping feeling of sorrow he has for the older man. He wasn't trained to be overwhelmed with emotions, but the last nine months with the other members of his unit opened him up to more of them, and now they're back in full force with the man who said his name is Dean. And on that note, Zero's still pretty damn perplexed. He doesn't need a perfect memory to know that the guy who'd kinda helped him out back in that shed was named Alec, and he looked a hell of a lot like Dean.

But Zero's not lost all his Manticore training—he knows when to judge the most opportune moments. And calling out Dean on that issue isn't in the cards at the moment. No, as Zero watches the twenty-something-rather's body relaxed—though his face is twisted in a wince—in slumber, he knows he's not going to address it yet. But he does know what he _will_ do.

Pulling out the cell phone that he's now very glad he'd let Fixit, well, fix, he dials a familiar number, though he'd never called it before. It rings three times before clicking over. "Who is this?"

It's Max's voice just as Zero recalls, and even though she's not here, he sits a little straighter. "It's Zero, ma'am," he answers, forgetting Max's distaste of the moniker.

She's silent for a moment, Zero assumes in surprise. "Oh my God," she finally answers. "How are you? Is something wrong?"

"No," Zero says with hesitance, peering at Dean warily again. "It's just—well, I'm in town, and—"

"You're in town? Everyone's there with you?" Max asks, and Zero can hear the eagerness in her voice.

Unfortunately, the eagerness is confined to Max alone. Zero's voice is grim as he replies, "No. We split up."

"Oh. I'm sorry." Zero guesses that Max had inferred they were all okay despite the relocations, and he hopes she won't ask further questions. "In that case…what's the matter?"

"Um…" Zero's not prone to stammering, but Manticore never exactly _trained_ him for these kinds of circumstances. He's going to have to hope for the best. "Does the name Dean Winchester mean anything to you?"

Zero has to hold the phone away from his ear as Max squawks, "You're with Dean? Where are you?"

Cringing at her tone, and half-expecting Dean to awaken at the sheer volume of it, he replies carefully, "We ran into each other on the streets—I don't know who he is. Should I?"

"Zero," Max interrupts sharply. "Where _are_ you?"

He knows an order when he hears one. And regardless of Max's speech about there not being those kinds of commands anymore, he recognizes it for what it is. "That abandoned Catalyst Paper USA mill over on Fourth Street."

The call is ended almost before Zero can get out the location, and he can almost envision Max already on her motorcycle, speeding towards him. He's done the right thing though, he's positive. Realistically, what could he do with this Dean guy right here, without help? He's in over his head. He knows this. He knows he needs Max's help.

So why does he feel like he'd somehow betrayed Dean by calling her?


	9. Chapter VIII: Temptation of the Damned

A/N: Same stuff applies as in the first chapter. Oh, and unfortunately I neither own _Supernatural_ nor _Dark Angel_. Just this.

A/N part two: I assure you I hadn't seen "The Real Ghostbusters" before I wrote this chapter. Thus, the bungee line came before the episode. I didn't steal credit!

A/N part three: Specific episodes of _Supernatural_ mentioned are: "Route 666," "Everybody Loves a Clown," and "Dream a Little Dream of Me." Specific episodes of _Dark Angel_ mentioned are: none. Also a reference to _Resident Evil_ (that has another link, given that Jensen Ackles was rumored to star in that. Which is a side note of no real importance).

* * *

**Of Desire and the Status Quo**

_**Chapter VIII: Temptation of the Damned

* * *

**_

Cindy tends to like bicycles over their motorized counterparts, but when Max tells her, in a speed that's so fast Cindy almost needs subtitles, that somebody named Zero had called declaring that he was miraculously with Dean, she follows Max out the apartment, Max's motorcycle accompanying them. She hops on behind Max, her hands somewhat uncomfortably around her friend's waist, and they're down the street before Cindy can think it all through. It's only about ten minutes until Max pulls up beside the paper mill, but when Cindy gets off, her hair is frizzier than normal, and she feels like she'd just got off riding a horse for hours. Max, of course, doesn't look bothered in the least.

Zero comes out of the warehouse door, obviously having heard Max pull up, and in spite of their previous hurry, she envelopes him in a big hug. It surprises Cindy a little, simply because Max hadn't talked much at all about the guy, yet she was embracing him like he was a close friend. Nothing escapes her, though: "Where's everyone else?" she asks.

Zero shifts his weight, suddenly wishing Max had followed Dean's example and just dropped the whole subject. Then again, he guesses he'd just forgotten about Max's take no prisoners attitude. Certainly, Dean struck him as having those same kickass traits, but at least Dean hadn't used them _against_ him. Nevertheless, Zero doesn't show that he's supremely ill at ease with Max's grating.

"We got separated," he answers, realizing belatedly that his words echoed Dean's verbatim.

"Manticore?" Max asks fearfully, her mind already coming up with worst-case scenarios.

"No," Zero clarifies with a clenched jaw. "Not exactly."

Max persists, "Then what?"

"I'd rather not discuss it," Zero snaps sharply, honestly a tiny bit bemused at his own snideness. On the other hand, he figures it's mainly because last time they'd met, he may have acted like a dependent kitten, but that's all over now. Months of having virtually no chain of command does that to a person. Why he'd stopped referring to Max as superior and yet felt the inherent compunction to do so with Dean, he isn't quite clear.

Max looks somewhat affronted, but Cindy nudges her and speaks up. "Enough," she snipes, fearing a fight. "Where'd you say Deano was?"

Zero's grateful for Cindy's involvement, but doesn't let it show on his face. Instead, he gestures to the looming, gray building behind him, picturing Dean's still-sleeping figure. "He's in there. But," he adds hastily, "he's out cold, so be quiet."

Max and Cindy brush past him, Zero following on their heels, shutting the heavy—and yet not very, given Zero's genetic strength—metal door silently. He doesn't know why, but he'd half-expected to see Dean to have disappeared or something, but he hadn't; Dean's still lying on the floor, almost in the fetal position, his breathing deep. Max and Cindy, for their part, let out a sigh of relief.

It's when Max kneels down and reaches out to nudge Dean's shoulder to awaken him that Zero suddenly feels the need to tell her to stop. But she doesn't, and in the next second, she's on the same end of Dean's reflexes as Zero had been not too long ago. When Dean doesn't let go of Max's neck, Zero realizes that Dean just might not recognize Max. Knowing there's no way Cindy could break them up, Zero runs forward and, with a great deal of effort, pries Dean off of Max. She takes in a shuddering breath of fresh air, and Dean stares at Zero like _he's_ the one off his rocker.

"Who the hell are you?" Dean demands, his voice now more low-pitched than raspy.

"Max," Max answers, now standing up straight. "You escaped out of Cindy's apartment."

Dean glances over to Cindy, who waves, a little frightened. Though she does notice that Dean's expression isn't as homicidal to her as it was to Max. That makes her ego do a little foxtrot for a second or two. For a minute, she ponders the strange possibility that Dean had been awake for some of when she and Max were talking. Maybe he had feigned some of the sleep. Obviously not all, she amends, considering no one could fake _that_ nightmare, but he _had_ escaped pretty quickly after she and Max had—

Oh. That would explain it.

"Boo," Cindy says calmly, glancing once at Dean. "I think we gotta tell this boy why we're here and what we know."

Max shoots a glare at her friend, a mild betrayal in her eyes that Cindy can't really compute. Was she the only one who saw Dean inches away from strangling her? "_Cin_," Max hisses, like it's some big secret.

And Cindy tells her as much. "Sugar, you gotta come correct on this," she chides. "Look at 'im! He's spooked as a baby horse."

Dean's obviously perturbed at this analogy, but he doesn't say anything about it, nor does he refute it, which is a little surprising. Max, meanwhile, doesn't see what Cindy does. "What are you talking about?" she asks. "He seems okay to me."

Cindy stares at her friend, aghast. "Max," she says sternly. "You forgot what happened back there? You saw jus' as good as I did what went down. And what _you_ did for 'im."

Dean looks uncomfortable, Cindy can see that, and she knows then that she was spot on about her suspicions of him being awake for some of it. At least for enough that he remembers Max's consoling. Which, apparently, Max does not. "I didn't forget," Max says, concluding that being gentle with Dean obviously wasn't the way to go. "I was just trying to leave that behind; I didn't think it best to, you know, dwell."

"Well this has been fun," Dean interrupts sharply, causing the two girls to look at him, "but I've really got places to be, people to find—er, see. So if you'll excuse me—"

He starts to run out the door (okay, not quite run, considering his muscles are still getting used to actually working after thirteen years of inactivity), but doesn't get more than ten feet before Zero blurs and catches him in the chest. Dean looks down the few inches to Zero's eyeline, murderous. It's something Zero's seen a million times before, but somehow, coming from his new acquaintance, it zings a lot more.

"Dean, wait," Max calls, apparently having lost a silent argument with Cindy, given the former's sour expression, and the latter's smug. Seeing he has virtually no choice, Dean turns to face Max, simultaneously shrugging off Zero's arm. "We want to help you."

Dean snorts ungracefully, and folds his arms across his chest with a small grimace of pain from phantom wounds. "Help me?" he echoes caustically. "You don't even know me." Thinking back to what he'd overheard earlier, he amends with ice in his tone, "Or maybe you do. Tell me: Did you find the charges about Satanic tagging, or did you just get to the part about grave desecration and mass murder?"

Max knows better than to show any affectation on her face, but truthfully, Dean'd just hit the nail on the head. She'd read all his crimes that she could find, but now that Dean's confronting her with it, and in conjunction with her previous concerns, what does she really know about _him_? Hell, she just met him a few hours ago! And even then, he'd been practically seizing with invisible demons playing through his head. Max hates being out of her element, but that's exactly what's going on, and she's pretty damn pissed off with it, to be honest.

"Well, is it true?" Max asks, and Cindy raises an eyebrow at her friend, surprised at her lack of not just tact, but foresight. Is Cindy the only person that sees that there's something off about the crimes they read about, and Dean's face twisted into something between malice, dislike, and resentment?

Not known to sit idly by and not play to her strengths, Cindy notices the opportunity. Putting her hand in a stop signal to Max, she states, "Back that train up, girlie," and then turns to Dean. "Boy, you come wit' Original Cindy. We gonna talk."

Without waiting for a response from any of the three other members in the room, Cindy puts her arm around Dean's bicep and forcefully drags him away, down to the other end of the warehouse. She knows Dean's obviously letting himself be led, mostly due to the fact that he outweighs her about sixty-five pounds of muscle, but to her, all it means is that he's more willing to chat with her than to be interrogated by Max. She doesn't know what the bond is with Dean and Zero, who seem to have some sort of weird camaraderie (except for the whole Zero calling Max on Dean thing), but she _does _know that when she'd first met Dean, he'd seemed to take to her in a way. She's hoping that maybe he'll do the same thing.

"What's the dealio with you?" she asks, looking up to all six-one of Dean's frame. "You all scared outta yo' mind this morning, now you out strollin' with the gangbangers?"

Dean rolls his shoulders, like there's a literal weight on them. "What can I say? I don't much like people who make assumptions," he declares stonily, looking pointedly at Cindy.

Cindy holds her hands up, shaking her head. "Uh uh, that ain't gonna fly," Cindy rejects. "You gotta tell us what's on yo' mind. Only looked at that stuff to find out who you are. Adds up to a whole lotta nothin'. Want to fill it in?"

Dean crosses his arms over his chest defensively. "I can't," Dean says painfully. Then, realizing the emotion that had come through, he amends more roughly, "And you wouldn't understand anyway. Just leave me alone."

"Dean—"

Sighing, Dean puts his hands on Cindy's upper arms firmly. "Look, lady, you're pretty okay," he says, thinking on how, thus far, Cindy's been as objective as one could be with Dean, and that means something. "But I have to find m'brother. I don't care what your guys' issue is, but I have to go. I just need to find him."

"Sam, yeah?" Cindy clarifies, even though she already knows the answer. Dean nods, unsurprised. "Y'know, more people lookin' for him would be better."

Allowing Cindy a hard exhale that faintly resembles a laugh, Dean drops his hands from her shoulders and shakes his head. "Y'all would just want to pick my brain, or worse. Just—let me go. Please."

Cindy looks over her shoulder back at Max. Her stance is unsettled, hand on her hip and exuding impatience; Zero's merely looking uncomfortable with everything. Unfortunately for Cindy, however, Dean's made his decision, and although he's not pleased with it, he doesn't see any other option. He has to get to Sam—he won't let himself be trapped like a specimen under a microscope. He won't.

"I'm sorry," Dean says somberly. "It's nothing personal."

Cindy turns her head back to Dean and her brow creases, dark eyes trying to find clarifying purchase in Dean's. "What you talkin' 'bout?" she asks. "What do you—"

Before Cindy can finish her sentence, Dean wraps his arm around her neck, grasps that hand with his left and applies pressure inwards, cutting off the blood flow by way of her carotid arteries, and within seconds, Cindy goes limp, her eyes rolling back in her head. Dean prevents her fall and instead lays her carefully on the cement, but keeps his eyes upwards in preparation for Max—she wouldn't be as easy to drop as Cindy. Especially if, as Dean predicts, Max would notice either the lack of her friend's voice, or even heard the virtually silent fall.

True to that, Max immediately snaps her head away from staring irritatedly at the wall over to Dean crouched next to Cindy's body on the floor. Dean can see it plain as day on Max's face: horror, horror stemming from her thinking Dean had just killed her best friend in virtual silence. At Max's movement, Zero had looked over as well, and has a similar expression, if more confused than horrified. Simply put, Zero doesn't think that his new acquaintance would've just up and strangled someone to death.

Zero's right…but Max doesn't know that.

"She's not dead," Dean says quickly, standing up. Max's face remains incredulous as she takes steps toward him. "Just unconscious. Please, just…just let me go. I won't hurt you, just leave me alone."

Max snorts in disbelief. "Don't think _I'm_ the one that'll be in trouble here," she says. In the heat of her fury (despite the fact that, now that she can see Cindy's chest moving, Dean hadn't been lying), she temporarily forgets her previous care for Dean, now only viewing him as an opponent who had dropped her friend like a sack of potatoes. Not to mention that she has no intention of letting him out of her sight. Not while everything about Dean, let alone what he has to do with Alec, is shrouded in mystery, which is in turn obscured by perplexity, which is saturated with a conundrum.

Blurring across the warehouse, Max aims a well-powered punch at Dean's face, again refusing to see him as exactly what he is. For Dean's part, he'd readied himself for Max's attack (not that he'd expected her to blur like that, but he's had innumerable supernatural creatures do the same thing, so it doesn't take much adjustment), and blessed adrenaline begins to pump through his bloodstream, counteracting his lesser muscle mass. Judging the trajectory of her hit, he ducks just in time, and puts his own fist into her stomach, forcing the breath out of her but, owing to Max's heightened abilities, doesn't take her down.

Appraising Dean's form again, she then sends a kick at the side of his ribcage, with a quicker speed than she'd normally consider. Dean's affected by the increased force, and although he's able to grab her ankle to prevent his ribs from breaking, her foot still catches him, and he winces at the stinging sensation running through the right side of his torso. Max takes advantage of Dean's momentary lapse in attention and swipes her leg underneath his, sending him sprawling to the ground, his side hitting the concrete with a sick, solid thud.

In spite of this, he recovers quickly, rolling onto his back and, using his momentum to its greatest capacity, flips onto his feet again. Transferring the same momentum, he plays a kick of his own into Max's chest. As her sternum rages in protest from the intense power behind Dean's move, Max is shoved back a few feet, both adversaries' breathing more strained than before. In the part of her mind not currently watching Dean's every twitch, Max wonders why Zero hasn't stepped in yet, but guesses he just doesn't want to get in the middle of it; let the two work out their issues physically, or something to that effect.

Covering the heightened distance between them instantaneously, Dean launches another punch to Max's face, his silver ring making a gash in the soft flesh as it hits her cheekbone. His other fist comes around to knock her in the jaw, causing her ears to ring like she has chronic tinnitus, and another kick to the kneecap jolts Max off balance. It's all the opening Dean needs, and with a final blow to her temple, Max's brain shuts down and she drops to the floor, her consciousness sufficiently wiped away.

Putting a hand on his ribs where he wouldn't be entirely shocked to hear are bruised, Dean looks up from Max's alive but very much inert form to the one other member in the room who isn't blacked out. Zero's watches from his position with amazement free of admiration, but from his current stance, Dean wagers that he's not in danger of being in another fight with a transgenic any time soon. (Which is good, because while Dean's adrenaline did him much good, the endorphins are starting to wear off, and his body is very much upset with him.)

Still breathing heavily, his side stitching a little, he sighs. "I really don't want to take you down, too," Dean says, trying to sound intimidating, ignoring the fact that he's nearly a hundred percent sure Zero would be the one taking him down.

"You didn't have to _knock them out_," Zero says after a couple moments. "Don't you think that was a little excessive?"

Dean shakes his head, recalling just how Catwoman Max may as well have been. "Oh, come on, man," Dean says obviously. "They weren't going to let me go. And speaking of," he goes on crossly, "what the hell did you call them for? What, think I'm some kind of head case?"

"I didn't know what else to do," Zero admits, dropping his shoulders of tension. "I'd never met you before, and Max is the only person I could think of to help with this. How was I supposed to know she'd react like that?"

Dean doesn't move his eyes from Zero's, but doesn't respond either. Truthfully, he can see what Zero's quandary would have been. Should he call the one woman he actually knows in the city to assist him with a guy that he somewhat bonded with, yet he doesn't know much about? Or does he keep hanging out with Dean, the first person he's actually talked with for an extended period of time without wanting to maim them? Moreover, Dean has to remind himself, despite the fact that Zero could kick the ass of someone twice his size, he really is only at most seventeen years old. When Dean was that age, he hadn't even fought one measly demon yet.

"You're right," Dean says in defeat, backing down a little on his Fort Knox defenses. "But I have to go get my brother."

Zero doesn't have to see Dean's face to hear the truth in his words, and they're heartfelt to the point that Zero can even ignore Dean's sending both Max and Cindy to the floor, blacked out. He knows family—biological or otherwise—and just because his situation didn't work out, it doesn't mean that Dean's has to follow the same route.

Sighing, Zero steps aside, more in a metaphorical sense than literal, since he technically wasn't in Dean's way in the first place. Dean can't manage a smile (he's not sure when he'll ever be able to smile again, honestly), but does hesitantly clap Zero on the shoulder with a tiny flicker of remorse before straightening his shirt and walking purposefully out of the room, into the now driving Seattle rain.

He'd resigned himself to walking however far he'd have to, but then something catches his eye, and when he turns to look at it, he's met with a sleek, black bike that he can only assume had belonged to either Max or Cindy. He casts a quick glance back at the warehouse, before twisting the keys that were left in the ignition, flaring the bike to life with a growling turnover. Releasing the clutch and revving the engine, the motorcycle speeds off, whipping up sprays of water and grime as it impels down the alleyway.

* * *

Ever since Alec had overheard that Max and Cindy are kicking it with Dean—whose last name hadn't apparently struck their "holy fucking hell" radars like it has Alec's—he's been on edge. Not only just because he knows as much of Dean's history as archives will tell him at the moment, but because he's nervous as to what would happen if Max brought Dean _here_. Maybe Max can't see it (she does tend to be blind to a lot of things), but Alec's pretty sure that anyone with half an imagination could deduce that, huh, Dean looks eerily like Alec. And then what would that do? Cause a crapload of trouble for everyone. Moreover, given the reported potential of Dean to be on a hair trigger, Alec allows there a very high chance of him wigging out when he'd see Alec.

Then there's, worse yet, the small little detail that Dean is, well, _Dean Winchester_. How's Alec supposed to see past that? Whatever weird fondness Max might generate for the guy, Alec at least knows that she's dealing with a psycho murderer. And because of her lack of self-preservation and thus lack of reporting and returning to T.C. with info on Dean, Alec can't do anything about it. It's a little nerve-wracking, Alec's not proud enough to deny that.

As he sits on the rooftop of one of T.C.'s buildings, the frigid air and drizzling rain attempting to calm his nerves, he allows the annoying part of his mind to acknowledge the other reason he's upset about this. It's not just because it's Dean Winchester the person, not specifically. It's more…Dean's M.O. It just…okay, Alec's not an irrational person, he's really not, and regardless what Max and a whole host of others think, he doesn't just hop to conclusions or go into situations half-cocked. But ever since he'd seen Dean's picture, associated it with the crimes, didn't fail to notice how damn similar the guy looks to Alec himself, he's been drenched continuously with the thought of another person who could fit in as well.

The thought being, naturally, of Ben. Of X5-493. His twin.

His _psycho_ twin.

Okay, _schizophrenic_, if that makes Max feel better.

And fine, Manticore did all the tests they could come up with, tortured Alec beyond what he'll ever, _ever_ want to remember, to make sure that Alec hadn't inherited the mental illness. Alec doesn't have it, Manticore proved it. But…but what if they hadn't? If they'd somehow missed something? Because Alec looks at Ben, and Alec looks at Dean, at Dean's and Ben's records, and he wonders. If both people that he's found resemble him past coincidence exhibited signs of at least some kind of brain on the fritz, the chances of Alec having the same thing is very high. It's not a fluke either, those statistics—Alec's a pro at stats. He hates the subject, but he's good at it.

He just doesn't want to find out he's defective. The horrific word that Manticore bastards attributed to those X's that showed signs of the shakes, of their own minds, things like that. It's true, to some extent, though. Technically, Ben's brain _was_ defective. Dean's brain probably _is_. Max already regards Alec differently from all the other residents of T.C. With them, she's warm and friendly, and trying to be all-inclusive, because Manticore sure wasn't.

But at Alec, for all of what she'd proclaimed, he knows she's seeing the mask of Ben over his face. It has no bearing that Alec and Ben are as far apart in personalities, behaviors, actions, and thoughts as possible. Doesn't matter how many times Alec's proved himself, or come up with plans or saving-someone's-ass that Max couldn't even dream of, let alone carry out.

He's tried, time and time again, to make Max see that he's _Alec_, that he's not fucking _Ben_, but she doesn't. He knows she doesn't. So now that Dean is in the picture, is Max going to see Dean in Alec as well? Over Ben? Instead of Ben? See Alec or Ben in Dean? Somehow, Alec doubts the latter. If anything, Max would see past Dean's façade and instead go straight for the internal being. Unlike what she does with Alec.

He's insecure, he'll say that at the moment. He just doesn't know what to do. He'd never been trained, never taught, what to do in this kind of situation. He doesn't know whether he's supposed to brush this all off and pretend it's going to set itself right, or whether he needs to take control, tell Dean just where he can stick himself, tell Max that _Dean's_ the one unhinged, that Alec's the sane one.

He just wishes it were that simple.

* * *

In general, and fairly akin to Cindy, riding a motorcycle isn't Dean's favorite thing to do. It's not the stealing of one—that really doesn't faze him much—but rather the schematics of the whole thing. He doesn't understand the appeal of rumbling around with little to no protection from the elements, let alone way less structural support than even the crappiest of cars. Maybe it's the fact that Dean usually drives only long distances or something, but he'd take internal heating and windshield wipers over nature's twenty-four/seven AC and a wimpy helmet facemask.

Don't even get him _started_ on that Orange County Choppers shit…

That all being said, however, Dean _does_ know how to drive one, and even with the jump into the future, apparently the mechanics of a motorcycle haven't changed much. He can appreciate the sleek black lines of Max's vehicle, the waxed exterior glaringly cared for unlike the rest of Seattle, the metal on it shined to perfection. He doesn't want to remember that he's absent of his beloved Impala, but he can't help but compare the two, to an extent. At least to the point that Max obviously was as—okay, maybe not _as_, but at least very—obsessed with maintaining her bike as Dean was about his Chevy.

Holy fucking Christ, he hates that it's in the past tense. Where the hell _is his car_?!

He's not quite sure when exactly he notices that he's being followed, the prickle on the back of his neck having persisted for a while. Dean had written it off as nothing—though in the recesses of his mind, he never did—but it had been there long enough that Dean knows something's up. Once he realizes this, he comes to notice almost scarily immediately that it's a nondescript, dark blue Toyota sedan, the type of car meant for doing recon on someone. Well, presuming that someone isn't Dean who's had way more instances of having to get rid of a stakeout in his life.

Dean isn't familiar with the streets of Seattle, and he definitely has to pay more attention to the debris littering the roadways, but he feels it's not really pertinent _where_ he goes, as long as the people following him get the hell away. What's more troublesome to him, however, is the mere act of it. He'd been on Earth for, what, a few hours? As far as he knows, he hasn't broken any laws or ripped anyone off, or hustled a cop or anything. He's just been gazing around confused at everything, or else having bitches of nightmares and throwing down with a woman who, if Zero had been telling the truth, is some kind of genetic freak.

Okay, fine, he's gone through a lot of crazy shit in those few hours, but it's not like that's the craziest shit he's ever had to deal with. A racist truck, killer clown, and real-life Freddy Krueger anyone? Yeah, genetic freaks aren't anywhere _near _the vicinity of Dean's level of weirdness. He's like friggin' Leon Kennedy.

The tail has been following him for a good six miles now, and Dean's frankly fed up with it. He's tired, he's in pain, he has no idea what's going on, he wants to see his damn brother, he's been accused of being a clone, he's already been punched in the face. His day is not going well and he needs a fucking beer. He thinks he's beginning to lose the vehicle somewhere around the eighth mile, and as he looks away from the side mirror and back to the road, he finds he's coming up on the derelict Space Needle he'd seen earlier. It's all run-down and graffitied now, but from the looks of it, it's got more than a few hiding places.

Dean's not one for wanting to hide instead of fight, but he also knows when to pick his battles, when to recognize his limitations. Right now, he's not at his peak health. So, groaning, he quickly dismounts the motorcycle, drops it underneath a fallen down piece of sheet metal—he's sorry that the bike itself probably scratched, but he thinks Max deserves it—and hastens over to a break in the chain-link fence, running silently through the dirtied outer yard, staying as close to whatever shadows he can find as possible. He supposes the fact that Seattle has gray skies about two hundred and forty days out of the year is a small mercy at the moment.

The entrance to the base of the Needle is ajar, and Dean makes use of it. He peers out from between the doorway and the structure, and sees the sedan slowly crawl through the alley where Dean had been not but ninety seconds ago. A couple guys get out, both dressed nicely, and take a few steps towards the fence. Cursing under his breath at his crapshoot of luck, he jogs into the bowels of the monument.

He'd only been here once before, when he was about twelve—a poltergeist, if he remembers correctly—but he'd never been up to the top, because John had commanded Dean to take Sammy and look around the downstairs museum while John took care of the beast. It had been up on the service entrance to the roof, where no one could see him, and John hadn't been gone for more than a half hour before coming down the stairs calm as you please (if looking a little worse for wear) and quickly shuffling his boys off into the then-thirty-years-old Impala and heading back to the motel to freshen up before leaving again.

That said, even at twelve Dean was an expert at casing out places, at noting entrances and exits and everything in between just on the very off chance he'd need to use them. Of course, his main reason for that was to please his daddy, who rarely acknowledged more than saying "good job taking care of Sammy."

But whatever.

Still, Dean remembers the layout, and hurriedly jogs to the staircase, the elevator quite obviously broken down by now. He's not pleased at how many stairs he has to hike up, but it's better than being dead or kidnapped or what have you, so he starts climbing. And climbing. And climbing some more. He'd counted for a while, but gave up around stair number four hundred. Normally, he'd just give up and just deal with whoever was dumb enough to tail him, but damn it, he's annoyed and really not in the mood, which propels him the last hundred some-odd steps to the no longer revolving restaurant. The windows are grime-encrusted, which actually works to his benefit. It would prevent his moving body from being seen, anyhow.

Dean's pretty sure that he'd be safe enough there, but just for kicks, he spies the maintenance entrance that he presumes John had taken all those years ago, and takes the rickety stairs as quickly as he's able. There's a hatch that he has to hoist open, oddly isn't rusted shut, like he would have thought given the state of things, but it's not something he really can bring himself to care much about.

Stepping up onto the metal peak of the Needle, where the air feels about twenty degrees colder and the wind billowing through his soaked shirt like he'd jumped in a pool clothed, Dean crouches behind the iconic pointed statue up top, and peers around it to where he'd last seen the car. Considering he's no fewer than six hundred feet, give or take, above the ground, the foggy clouds are that much more pronounced, and the rain is still in torrential stage, he doubts he's visible to anyone from the ground.

The car's right where it'd been last he saw it, and he can just make out people inside of it, looking through the slightly tinted windows to see if their intended target had gone through the fence or had otherwise disappeared somewhere within the labyrinth of a city. After rolling down the window, getting out again, and huffing in defeat, they get back in the Toyota and roll away in a squeal of burnt rubber.

Sighing in relief—and the fact that he's still out of breath—Dean falls against the needle with a dull clang, sliding down the wet surface until he meets the lightly sloped bottom. He closes his eyes against the pelting rainfall, running a hand through his hair that's currently stuck to his forehead, raindrops catching on his long eyelashes and then finally relinquishing their hold, his breaths bringing much appreciated oxygen, but in addition water as well. Granted, he most assuredly prefers the harmless wetness of rain versus the scorch of fire or chest-crushing waterboarding, but still.

Now that Dean's able to calm down a little, and get back on track of figuring out how to find Sam, Dean realizes something that both irks and depresses him. Which is, predictably, Sam's geekiness. (Eloquently put, yes?) Dean had never really acknowledged the depth to which Sam's skill for research went—a skill Dean bets was cultivated even more during his college years—but right now, regardless of how much shit he'd always given him, Dean wishes he had that adeptness. If someone were missing, there'd be a good ninety or so percent chance they'd be found fairly quickly. Don't get him wrong, Dean's not shabby in the least in terms of research, but Sam had always had a slight edge over him. Then again, the person Dean needs to find is Sam himself, so it'd kind of defeat the purpose if Sam and his locating talents were close to Dean.

On the other hand, Dean was the one who was consistently better in the tracking and fighting business—for the life of him, Sam could _never ever_ hang onto his damn gun, always letting the adversary knock it out of his hand; Dean was _this close_ to strapping a bungee cord around the gun and Sam's wrist—as well as sensing where things or people were. It made them a pretty kickass team, what with Sam being able to hone in on the damsel (or dude, either way) in distress and Dean being able to kick, punch, shoot, and slash his way through to save them. Sam could hold his own for sure, but it was Dean was the one who had the prowess, generally.

He'd discovered that that skill was still most definitely in effect both when he'd sensed Zero's presence, as well as when he'd beaten Max, but now it's whirring up again. And although for a second Dean simply internally groans—his bad day is going to get worse, he wagers—and then simultaneously snaps open his eyes and jumps up into a tensed standing position, ready to take on whoever or whatever may be intending him harm.

It takes him a second to focus through the foggy rain, but when he does, he takes a small step back. Even though he hadn't seen them very well before, it's blatantly clear that the two men standing in front of him now are the same two he'd seen stepping out of the Toyota. They're not thuggish, nor do they look particularly strong, and it's rather jarring to see them dressed to the nines in pristine, if partially inundated, suits, shined loafers and coiffed hairstyles to boot. Dean gives them both a quick once-over and thinks he can take them, even though he really doesn't have the inclination to do so.

"Who the hell are you?" Dean asks, centering his muscles. "Why are you following me?"

"Don't be like that," says the man on the right, the one with light brown hair and blue eyes. "I know you remember me. _494_."

Dean's face remains neutral, except for a small frown that appears. _494? What?_ Dean has no freakin' idea what that means. He doesn't even know if he's _supposed_ to know what that means. Then again, bad guys tend to be weird all the way around, and these guys, regardless of the preppy way they're attired, are doubtless made in the same mold.

"Look, I don't know what your kink is," Dean says, having to raise his voice through the noise of the rain and wind, and disliking the way it feels like his throat is being scoured with Brillo steel wool. "but I really don't know who the hell you are, and I haven't done anything to piss anyone off, so I'd really appreciate it if you'd just fuck off."

The man who'd spoken to Dean turns to the other one, a darker-skinned man who looks a little less mobster-ish, and nods. Dean hates it when they nod. It's never good. "You know, I'm really actually surprised that you came out of your little rathole to go up here. Thought you people would have learned by now that that's a bad thing to do," says Suit (Dean decides to nickname him that; sounds more movie-villain, more Oddjob). "Though if you're stupid enough to start a bar brawl, I guess I shouldn't put anything past you."

"A bar brawl…" Dean stops mid-sentence, recalling just that. He wouldn't exactly term it a _brawl_—after all, Dean had only thrown one punch, just like the other guy—but obviously Suit has other standards. "Look, that guy hit me first. Self-defense, man."

Suit shakes his head, in a pity-like way, like Dean's a child who doesn't understand what his parent is trying to say. "Well, I suppose it doesn't really matter anyhow," says Suit in ponder. "It'll just turn out the same way for you, 494."

_There's that name again_, Dean thinks, annoyed. He's frankly fed up with all this confusion that's been surrounding him the entire day, and would like it to go fuck itself. Away from him. But why would his luck start _now_?

Suit's obviously done talking to Dean, and immediately the other guy takes steps towards Dean, attempting to take him down, Dean supposes. The guy had his form right, but Dean's reflexes are too good for that. Glad to note that the man's strength is very much human and not to Max's degree, Dean uses the momentum of the man's punch to twist his arm around, the bones creaking in protest, and then knees him in the groin. The man stumbles, but shakes off the pain, and gives a quick glance over to Suit, whose face hadn't changed much, beside expectation.

The man circles around for a moment, before Suit takes something out of his jacket pocket. "It's really unfortunate you couldn't come quietly," says Suit. "I'm a little disappointed you aren't fighting better. Ah, well."

Before Dean can realize that the man who had lamely tried to fight him was really just aiming to get him closer to Suit, Suit aims a gun-like object at him, and with the force of a pellet gun, leads spout out of the weapon, attaching themselves to Dean's stomach. Dean shakes violently with the electricity running through his veins for a few seconds, and then slumps to the ground, motionless.

"Come on, Otto," says Suit. "We've got work to do."


	10. Chapter IX: If It Had to Perish Twice

A/N: Same stuff applies as in the first chapter. Oh, and unfortunately I neither own _Supernatural_ nor _Dark Angel_. Just this.

A/N part two: Specific episodes of _Supernatural_ mentioned are: none. Specific episodes of _Dark Angel_ mentioned are: none.

* * *

**Of Desire and the Status Quo**

_**Chapter IX: If It Had to Perish Twice

* * *

**_

Sitting up carefully and glaring at the empty doorway through which Dean had just disappeared, Max puts her hand up to touch her jaw. The skin is raised and she imagines black and blue as well, and she thinks she underestimated Dean once again. She knows she's faster than him, and if it came down to a fight with weapons and they were a dozen feet from each other, she'd probably win. But Dean's specialty, she's very quickly finding out, is hand-to-hand combat, and when he's close enough to a target, he's a whirlwind of fists, boots, elbows, and head, even a blade if he had it.

And, of course, the fact that Dean's trained a hell of a lot differently than she is, and considering the majority of the people that she's fought are either Manticore creations (and thus being taught the same way she was), or Ordinaries (who likely weren't taught anything at all, or sucked at it), she's not used to an alternate brand of fighting. She plans to remedy that soon. Maybe ask one of the combat models back at Terminal City. They'd know a hundred kinds of battle techniques.

Standing up and quickly gaining her equilibrium, she looks around the abandoned warehouse; she notices Cindy's still out cold on the floor—Ordinaries generally recover slower than transgenics—and after another scan, finds Zero sitting with his knees scrunched up against one of the concrete support beams. His expression is hard to read; a mix of irresolution, frustration, disappointment, boredom, and a few others she doesn't have time to decode.

"Zero?" Max asks groggily, putting a hand to her head where it had hit the ground as Dean'd delivered the last blow. "Where—Where's Dean?"

Zero looks up at her like he's got all the time in the world. Though Max doesn't think it's exactly that, more that he doesn't know what to make of the whole thing. "He left," Zero says simply. "Said he had to find his brother."

"Shit," Max curses violently, exhaling roughly and shifting her weight. "Did you see where he went? I mean, he couldn't have gone that far…I can probably catch him…"

Looking uncomfortable, Zero clears his throat before clarifying, "Um, actually, I think he took your motorcycle."

Max's face turns from confidence to fury, and she runs over to the doorway of the warehouse, where, lo and behold, her Ninja had vanished. The scorch marks from burned rubber corroborate Zero's story, and she's none too pleased about this. Seriously, her _motorcycle_. Had absolutely _all_ etiquette left?

"He didn't say where he was going?" she asks in a last ditch effort.

Zero shakes his head, neglecting to mention that he hadn't even thought to ask that of Dean. Not that he would have expected Dean to tell him, but that's kind of beside the point.

With a final, half-strangled groan, Max sets her brain to figuring out how she's supposed to get this whole thing sorted out. Unfortunately, all she gets for a while are three words: "_Damn_ it, Dean."

A hurried request to Zero to watch over Cindy while she sorts something out and exchange of phone numbers, and Max is sprinting out the door, squinting into the driving rain. Her motorcycle is gone, that much she's already discovered, and although she's pissed about it, she's more frustrated; finding Dean on foot would've been hard enough. Now that he's got a motorized vehicle… But she's never pleased with giving up, so she blurs down the alleyway, heading in the direction of Terminal City. She knows when she's beat and when a situation is fruitless; there's no feasible way she can locate Dean while he's on her bike—not to mention he's _Dean_, who she thinks could disappear in a cropped field being surveilled by a helicopter—and getting to T.C. and her people is, she feels, going to be the best option at the moment.

It'll be a good twenty or thirty minutes on foot, given that she has to factor in avoiding people like the plague, but she has concern and anger going for her, so she blanks her mind as completely as she can, Seattle's layout mapped in her head.

* * *

Back in the Command Center, Alec's going over inventory with Mole—read: playing poker to get his mind off things, and winning admirably—when the doors fly open, letting in a small torrent of rain before they shut. Alec looks up, Max's soaked-as-all-hell body exactly the one he'd wanted to see. Quickly, he lays down his hand and tells Mole he folds. (The lizard-man picks up Alec's cards, sees he'd had a royal flush, and wonders what the hell is his problem.)

"Max!" Alec shouts, jogging over to her. "There's something I have to talk to you about."

Max looks at him, but her agitated state doesn't allow for her full attention. "Alec, I don't have time," she says hurriedly. "I think Dean might be in trouble."

"_Dean_?" Alec asks incredulously. How can she not realize? If people in T.C. knew about this… "Max—"

"I need to find him," Max says, edging past Alec.

Turning around and addressing her fervidly again, Alec stresses, "It's fucking important!"

He almost recourses to blurting out his predicament, regardless of whoever in the Command Center might be overhearing. Risking bodily harm, Alec grabs Max's arm forcefully, turning her around to face him, using enough strength to where it'd be inadvisable for her to try and wrench him off.

She looks down at his hand indignantly. "_What_?" she asks laboriously.

Alec glances around the room, where, due to his action, a few more transgenics had switched their awareness to their two commanding officers. "In private," Alec says, begging Max to see his desperation.

Sighing, Max nods. "All right, we'll talk," she says, but then adds sternly, "But you're going to have to help me find someone whether you like it or not."

Alec crosses his arms, amused by how Max thinks she can make him do anything whatsoever. "Gonna have to sweeten the pot there, Maxie," he mocks, the innuendo (if off-the-cuff) clear. "It'll take more than attempted intimidation to make me go after a psycho that looks like me."

Max starts to retort, and then halts herself. "Wait…how do you know that?" she asks, her glare turning to suspicion.

Clenching his jaw, he stares right back, actually a little pleased with the segue into what he'd come to talk to Max about in the first place. "You didn't expect me to just leave the dream like I did," Alec comments mutedly.

"I didn't know what it was about," Max defends, a small crease appearing between her brows. Damn it all, but it's hard to scowl when she's being bombarded by the terrible images of Alec in his nightmare. "It was about Dean?"

"I only saw Sam," Alec admits, unwilling to go into the details but acknowledging that he kind of does have to. "But I commandeered Dix to help me out, and he brought up stuff on Dean, too. A little bit of a buzzkill to find out your likeness is a serial killer whackjob."

Max releases the tension in her posture. "I'm sorry," Max says, this time wholly serious. At least _Max's_ twin had only been as "serial killer whackjob"-y as the rest of Manticore's experiments were. Dean, on the other hand, is a whole new level of freak for them.

"Forget it. Doesn't matter."

Silence passes for a few moments, and then Max nods. "Tell you what," she says, giving Alec a sly smile. "You help me find Dean, I'll help you figure out what the deal is with you guys."

Alec snorts, an obvious refusal. "Try again," he replies stubbornly. "You'd want to figure out the connection regardless. Why don't you just get your boy toy to help you out?"

Fed up with the day and really just wanting a shot of something, Alec moves to pass Max again. This time, despite her annoyance with his jab at Logan, she allows him to go by. It's only until after that she realizes she has to resort to the barest reserves of her ability to beseech.

"Alec, wait," she calls, and he sighs before turning around, unamused. "Would you please just do this for me?" She shrugs in defeat. "You're the only person who could help me out."

As she'd anticipated, Alec's eyebrows raise in dubiety. "Shameless ass-kissing," he remarks with absent interest. "Wow, you're more invested in this than I thought."

"Come on," Max says, attempting to keep her frustration at bay. Appealing to someone doesn't work very well when you get pissed off at them. "You know as well as I do that anyone else from T.C. wouldn't understand."

"_I _don't understand!"

"And you know that Logan doesn't have the physicality to chase Dean down, which is what we'd probably end up having to do," Max continues, ignoring Alec's outcry, and disliking herself for boldly pointing out Logan's admittedly very true limitations. His exoskeleton worked miracles, and truthfully, he most likely could prove his worth, but…in this case, Max is still too out of her element without worrying what would happen if Logan met up with Dean (or vice versa, for that matter). No, she'd much rather Logan stay safe in Sandeman's house. "Please, Alec. He could die."

Alec's face is even more upset than before, if it's possible. "He's already supposed to be dead, Max," he says, thinking back to the reports of Monument, Colorado, and the police station explosion. "In what way would I care if the guy goes back to that? I'd really like to just forget this whole thing even happened. Life is up the creek enough without having this horseshit swirling around everything."

"I thought you said you wanted to get to the bottom of what your nightmare meant," Max says, feeling a twinge of guilt at exploiting what had obviously been a sickeningly bad ordeal. True to the words, Alec's expression turns both incredulous and murderous, like he hadn't expected her to stoop that low. "All I'm saying," Max hastens, heavily considering taking a step back or two from him, "is that maybe Dean can fill in some of the blanks. Besides, what about the coincidence that your nightmare happened around the same time that Dean appeared? Don't you think that _means_ something?"

Alec doesn't respond, just stands there tensely, his fingernails digging into his crossed arms. Max can see him vacillating rapidly between the two options, and she knows, somehow, that for the most part, it's not the actual rescuing of Dean that's halting him. Not even the fact that it's Dean Winchester. More, she would bet her life on, in the vein of Alec being afraid of what he'd find. What his link is to Dean, to Sam, to the both of them.

She knows he hates mysteries, but he hates finding out things that, were this Manticore, would determine him as having some kind of defection or mental deficiency. They both know it's irrational, and she doubts Alec is aware that she can see what ails him, but it's still one of Alec's fears, and Max knows that's his main misgiving in going to save Dean. Had this been Sam (X5-453, not Sam Winchester, that is), and presuming they hadn't already met her, Alec would have gone with Max to spring her without question. Mockery, maybe, but not questioning, let alone full-on recalcitrance.

"Even if I _did_ go with you, there's no way we could find him," Alec says quietly, his change in demeanor giving Max a whiplash. "He's probably halfway to Idaho by now."

Max shakes her head, the idea just now coming to her. "I know the timeframe. We can see if Dix can hack into some satellite imagery, try to track him that way."

Alec doesn't answer her, just does that strange visible insecurity again.

"Please, Alec."

Like the world was just dropped on his shoulders, Alec ducks his head and exhales. "Okay," he says leadenly.

Max gazes at him for a few more minutes contritely before heading towards Command, ready to ask for Dix's assistance. She'd usually ask Logan to do this sort of thing—and, truthfully, she had been thinking of it when she'd first proposed the GPS idea—but the whole situation is already fucked up as it is, and adding to what her thoughts were initially about Logan coming with them Alec's extremely tenuous assent to get Dean back, she doesn't want to aggravate it. And if there's anyone who can irritate Alec, it's Logan.

For all their forced politeness when in the same room together, or even when just the few times they refer to one another, Max knows they'll always be oil and water. Logan harboring resentment that Alec is, at least biologically, superior in most (if not all) ways to him; not to mention, Alec can touch Max should he choose to, where Logan is unable to do so. Alec harboring resentment that Logan's…well, Max doesn't really know why Alec doesn't like Logan, but he doesn't nonetheless.

"Okay, so, where would you go if you were being followed?" Max starts up again, attempting to keep her voice as placating as possible. Now that she has Alec's affiliation, she's hoping to utilize his and Dean's potential—probable—similarities. She's confident she could find Dean alone, but if Alec could narrow down the search parameters, she's all for that.

Alec's not so endeared to the idea, but he puts all pride to the wind indeterminably. He also thinks Max's question is kind of a moot point since he'd really rather not associate himself with Dean Winchester, thank you very much, but he'll humor her for the time being. He hasn't been followed often (he was too good at his job for that), but if he can pretend he was and in a not previously encountered situation…

"I'd get to the nearest place I could find that had adequate protection," says Alec. His sight wanders out the window, and it hits him as hard as when he'd first remembered who the Winchesters were. "Space Needle," he says with a level of certainty that has no logical roots.

"Alec," Max says carefully, "are you—"

"I'm sure, Max!" Alec exclaims harshly. "It's where I'd go."

"All right," Max allows. "I trust you."

It's the first time Max has actually said the words to Alec, and although he's primarily surprised, it's neither the time nor place to psychoanalyze semantics. Taking Alec's response as gospel (it's as good a place to start looking as any) and hearing his slow, trudging steps behind her, she walks up the steps to the computer terminals, sitting on the corner of Dix's desk. He looks up at her through his monocle, confused. "Can you do me a favor?"

Dix looks at Alec covertly, silently asking him if the reason he came with Max—it's no secret Alec tries to get out of doing any work that someone else can do—is at all because of what Alec had asked Dix to do before. Despite this, Max doesn't miss the look and, Alec having told her about his previous request for Dix, gripes, "Yes, it has to do with Dean Winchester, now can we move on please?"

Her voice is still low enough to prevent anyone else from overhearing, and though she does doubt that any of those in T.C. would register the name, it's still a risk she doesn't want to take. Dix has an expression of the slightest amusement as he replies, "Okay, but I found all the info I could on him. It would take me a while to find any more."

It's clear that Dix really would rather not spend another five hours without any guarantee of new knowledge. "We know," Max says, although she's still peeved at Alec for not telling her in the first place. "We need you to hack into a satellite feed. The area around the Space Needle starting ninety minutes ago. We're thinking Dean might've headed over there, and need to see where he would've gone after."

Dix immediately gets to work. After a minute or so, he looks up at his two CO's, still typing. "Am I missing something here?" he asks.

"No."

"Yes."

Max glares at Alec as he replies at the same time as she had, but Alec really couldn't care less. After all, he considers this as having more to do with him than Max. "Max here thinks her new pet has been kidnapped and she wants to get him back home safe and sound," he elaborates sarcastically.

Frowning, Dix glances between Max and Alec, before saying slowly, "Isn't Dean Winchester kind of a—"

"—creepy as hell sociopathic murderer and my replica?" Alec finishes. "Yeah. But Maxie chooses to ignore that fact."

Forecasting a squabble that won't have anything to do with him, Dix redirects his attention back to accessing satellites. "You agreed to this!" Max objects hotly, proving Dix right. "What is this?"

"Pardon me for not wanting to find a guy who's supposed to be dead anyway."

"Could you _be_ any more childish? This isn't just about you! It could be exposure for all of us, you know."

"Weak excuse. Who's to say he isn't faking? Maybe _he_ _killed_ Sam!"

"Yeah, right. Sounds just like him."

"Guys."

"Why do you like this dude so much? How is he any better than me?"

"Stop whining, Alec."

"Guys?"

"If he kills us all, don't come crying to me!"

"_First of all_, I'd never go _crying_ to you. Second of all, if we were all killed, I wouldn't even be able to."

"Technicality."

"Guys!"

"WHAT?"

Max and Alec both turn back to Dix, wearing identical faces of irritation and vehemence. Dix oddly doesn't see much actual anger—mainly just impassion—but if Dean—holy crap, that is so _crazy_ to think of what Dix is doing for his leaders—but he gestures to his computer screen. "I found a feedback. Looks like your motorcycle arrived there about an hour ago."

"Yeah, dude _stole_ it," Alec snipes, now only goading, considering he truly has no moral problems about stealing. "Stand-up guy, really."

"Shut up, Alec."

"It looks like he went to the top and—" Dix pauses, looking closer at the screen. "Two guys went up after him. Something happened up there; apparently he lost a fight or something," Dix continues, getting a bad feeling. "It's kind of hard to see because of the weather, but around fifteen minutes later, a black car drives away. License plate 450-K something."

Max leans down to peer at the images Dix had brought up. She notices Dean had hid her bike underneath a piece of sheet metal, and she's glad he didn't do something worse to it. She'd have to clean it up thoroughly and check for scratches and whatnot, but at least it isn't lying in a ditch somewhere. She's trying to keep her mind off the whirling maelstrom of bad things that could have happened to Dean. Mainly concerning who would have wanted to take Dean. And why.

"Can you tell where the car went?" Alec asks, finally piping up with something useful. But Max looks at his pinched face, and knows he's thinking along the same lines as she.

Dix shakes his head regrettably. "Sorry," he answers. "The satellite cuts out. Best I can tell you is the direction."

Max doesn't know what to do with the shoddy information, but after taking only a fleeting glimpse of the video, Alec hops down the stairs and over to a table covered with papers. Shuffling through them, he comes up with a large and detailed map of the city. Max follows, and stares down. She'd ask what he's doing, but one look at his face full of concentration, and she stays silent.

"Where did you say you lost him from?" Alec asks pragmatically, and Max, choosing to brush off his maybe-unintentional jab, wordlessly points at where the warehouse had been. Alec runs his finger along some streets until he gets to Seattle's central monument. Obviously doing rapid-fire computations in his head, Alec then moves his finger in a broad, but not impossibly so, circle.

"They're going to be within this diameter," he continues assuredly. "I don't know if they would've stopped before getting out of it or if they're still driving, but they couldn't have gotten farther than here" Alec prods his finger at a spot close to Penn Cove, "based on the time and speed range they may have been going."

"Who do you think took him?" Max asks, aiming for withholding any fear, but not quite succeeding. Alec stares at her hard for a few seconds, silently telling her his best guess. "Why would White want him?" she says quietly, her voice between hate and dread.

"I don't know," Alec answers ruefully. "But if it is White, we'd need to look for an abandoned bunker or something similar. He'd go for massive, but not flashy. Considering his captive of choice, my guess is that he'd go for some kind of torture, which would mean he'd most likely need access to lab equipment."

Max stares at Alec for a few moments, before briefly touching his shoulder in gratitude despite the dire circumstances, and then heading back over to Dix to tell him what Alec had deduced, after which she proceeds to pace agitatedly. For his part, Alec merely sits down at the table, concentrating on the map as if Dean's route were in motion, Max's motorcycle with him behind the handlebars, dodging White through the streets, ending up at the Space Needle and then disappearing with whatever crony White had commissioned. Alec doesn't know why White would want to go after Dean—or, for that matter, how White had even _found_ Dean—but it's not Alec's job to figure that out. He's only being commissioned for the rescue and return part of it. He doesn't have any additional plans to be involved. It's all way beyond his pay grade.

Seven very tense minutes later, Dix makes a noise of triumph. "I think I got something!" the transhuman exclaims. As Max and Alec hasten over, Max shushes him in continued fear of others overhearing. They both look over Dix's shoulder, peering at the GPS image. Dix points to a gray building in the middle of what was probably a state park years before. "It's the only building that resembles a bunker in the area Alec said."

"Where is it?" asks Alec, trying to triangulate the location but not having much luck.

"Forty miles northeast of here," Dix answers. "I'll give you the coordinates."

"Super. Won't be much more'n twenty-five," Alec comments, grinning at the fact that because of Max's concern over Dean, he'd be able to go all out speed-wise.

Max, a little regrettably, has to object. "We can't drive there," she says. Alec snaps his head over to her, outraged. "It'll draw commotion. We'll have to stay to the side streets, and then that forest by the bunker."

"Wait, you want us to hike _forty fucking miles_ over to this place?" Alec confirms hotly. "I did _not_ sign up for this."

Max levels a glare at him, to which he promptly pays no mind. "Oh, please, you know we can run full out for more than that," she chides.

"Doesn't mean I _want_ to!" Alec complains, looking again at the GPS as if it will suddenly change the coordinates to closer to Terminal City. "Think of all the time we'd save driving."

"Yeah, think of all the attention we'll get when White and the Familiars hear us coming," Max retorts back. In the resolute expression that only Max can possess, she says with finalizing decree, "White won't kill Dean between now and the time we get there. We're locked and loaded in three, Alec."

Alec gapes for more than a few seconds, during which Max rolls her eyes and hurries off, presumably to fortify herself with her customary jacket, perhaps squeeze out the water from her clothes and change shoes (not that Terminal City is exactly a mall, but Max is reasonably sure she can rummage up _something_ dry).

Feeling Dix's galled, half-amused gaze, Alec narrows his eyes. "Say nothing," he says curtly.

Stomping off, Alec beelines straight for the armory, fully intending to outfit himself with every weapon he can fit on his person. Manticore made sure their soldiers knew every possible hold for a weapon, and Alec aced that part of training. Hell, he knows how to pass a government frisking. Really, _really_ not wanting to go through with this plan and wishing his conscience would let him leave Dean in White's clutches to die a horrible death, Alec snatches up a nine-mil, then moves on to knives.


	11. Chapter X: Past in the Present

A/N: Same stuff applies as in the first chapter. Oh, and unfortunately I neither own _Supernatural_ nor _Dark Angel_. Just this.

A/N part two: First off, to all those who celebrate it, Happy Thanksgiving! Hope you have fantastic turkey, cranberry sauce, and everything else; I'm putting this up now, since I don't foresee having much time later today in which I'll be able to update. To those of you who don't celebrate Thanksgiving, have a great 26th of November. As for the non-holiday related stuff, a lot of you have been asking about whether Sam will appear in this story. The answer is maybe. (_I_ know, but author's prerogative on letting y'all in on it and all. Heh. But I adore conjecture, so speculate away!)

A/N part three: Specific episodes of _Supernatural_ mentioned are: "Skin," "Faith," "The Benders"/"Family Remains," "In My Time of Dying," "All Hell Breaks Loose, Part II," "Folsom Prison Blues," "Jus In Bello," "I Know What You Did Last Summer," "On the Head of a Pin," and kind of "Hunted" and "Wishful Thinking." Specific episodes of _Dark Angel_ mentioned are: "The Berrisford Agenda" and "She Ain't Heavy."

* * *

**Of Desire and the Status Quo**

_**Chapter X: Past in the Present

* * *

**_

Whoever had knocked him out did a good job, Dean can't help but think somewhat metaphysically as he swims inside of his own head of darkness. And he has standards for this kind of thing—he really doesn't wish to calculate just how many times he's had the living daylights smacked out of him. Though it's kinda worse this time, seeing as how he's pretty sure the guy who sent him flying out of the real world isn't demonic or supernatural. Least not in the ways beyond being a massive douchebag.

And that really annoys him, 'cause Dean should have seen him coming, heard him coming. Just because he might be a little off his game lately doesn't mean he's lost all his training and reflexes. That's what pisses him off more than being kidnapped. (He knows that's what it is, the kidnapping part.) He's gotten out of worse scrapes than just being abducted; this is just another day at the office. Er…former office, he supposes.

He's not sure how long it is until the unconsciousness starts to wear off, but when it does, he can feel he's still in the process of being transported wherever—he can feel the truck rumbling across a road—and, in case of someone sitting right to the side of him, he opens his eyes infinitesimally, keeping his body mimicking the same movements as being unconscious. Steady breaths, uncontrolled twitches, no talking.

He wishes he knows how long he'd been out; that way, he could calculate how fast the vehicle is moving, and roughly where they're headed. Like that time Sam was taken by those vampires. At least then they'd kept him awake. Truth be, Dean really, _really_ would rather be in the company of vampires, even if they weren't the "good" ones, than twisted humans. His motto still rings true, he realizes with an internal groan: Demons he gets, people are crazy.

The aphorism gains even more weight when Dean overhears what they're saying. Some of the words are muffled, but Dean definitely catches something about the kidnappers doing some things to Dean that, well, he would much like _not_ to happen. Something about some synthetic chemicals that he's not sure the purpose of…shackles…interrogation room…_surgical_ room…

It's enough to make Dean hyperventilate with memories coming up fast and hard, no matter that these are flesh and blood humans, and not the bastards down in Hell. He thinks he's just hyperventilating in his head, but the accelerated breathing, the unnatural movements of his chest up and down don't lie.

The talking ceases, and the person next to Dean (he was right on that one) looks up at the person in the passenger seat, before making a face at Dean and then taking the butt of his pistol and slamming it into Dean's temple. There's a crack, and then he succumbs again, this time his mind without coherent thought.

* * *

For Cindy, the world slowly comes back into focus and color as she opens her eyes, the lighting as dull and low as every other day that she can remember. Sitting up blearily, Cindy rubs her hand over her neck, expecting to feel bruising and soreness, but if it hadn't been for her knowing she'd passed out and missed an as-yet-indeterminable amount of time, she wouldn't have known Dean had put a sleeper hold on her. Speaking of…

"Dean? Max?"

She looks around the warehouse, frowning when she sees neither of the two she'd known were here before she'd lost consciousness. She begins to get concerned when she realizes they're definitely not in the building, and wonders if she'd wholly misread Dean, and he really is a psychopathic murderer who'd dragged Max out into the alley and cut her up into little pieces while he escaped into the insouciant streets of Seattle.

But then she sees the teenage transgenic on whom Max had given her the short version of who he is, and, standing up with a little bit of dizziness, and making a note to herself to give Dean a piece of her mind next time she sees him. (It's now she gets a thought that maybe she _won't_ see Dean again, and that makes her rather troubled. For all his bluster and mystery, the guy really had grown on her.) She thinks that when Max gets a chance, she'll call her, and although Cindy doesn't expect to hear very soon from her best friend, it doesn't mean she won't still wait impatiently for it. She knows that _eventually_ Max will get back to her, and Cindy will surely berate her for leaving her wondering, but she also knows that Max has more on her shoulders than she ought to, and in the grand scheme of things, Cindy's aware that a fiesty Ordinary, friend and confidante or no, is a lower priority than a lot of things.

"Aiight, kiddo," Cindy says, walking over to Zero, who's leaning against the wall in a very _un_-soldier like pose. "Where'd they get off to? No one killed anyone, did they?"

"Okay, _first of all_," Zero says, annoyed, "I'm not an Information desk, unlike what you and Max apparently think. Secondly, no one died; Dean knocked Max out, took her motorcycle, and went off somewhere. And finally, how the hell should I know? Dean knocked Max out, took her motorcycle, and went off somewhere. When she woke up, all she said was she needed to find Dean. Didn't really occur to me to ask anything else."

It made sense, Cindy has to admit. If she hadn't spent any time with Max or Dean, hell yeah she'd be reluctant to ask either of them anything. Especially if she'd just witnessed a fight between two badasses, both utilizing all their badassery to bend the other to their will, and only one of them succeeding. Still, that doesn't make her any less pissed off that both of them had just left her there, _unconscious_, without doing squat to make sure she was okay or something. She knows they have priorities—Max with both T.C. and finding Dean, and Dean with finding Sam—but come on. Even a little note would've been nice.

"So you got nothin'?" Cindy asks unhappily. "Jus' that they left?"

Zero shrugs. "Sorry."

Cindy groans, and eyes Zero up and down. "You got a way to get me back to my place? I really ain't lookin' forward to walkin' back there," she inquires.

Zero raises his eyebrows; he hadn't really considered the need to not just walk. X5s weren't _pleased_ with it necessarily, but they'd dealt with worse, and Zero had been trudging around himself for weeks, not paying much mind to it.

"Um…think I saw an old car out there that I could hotwire," he proposes, wondering if he'd actually be able to use the vehicular lessons Manticore had put him through. At the time, he hadn't understood why he was using them, mainly because Manticore had blown up before he'd had to employ the lessons, but now he thinks maybe he will get to do so. "There should be one somewhere."

"Sweet," Cindy says, not a stranger to being in gray areas of the law. "Let's go."

He's not quite sure what to make of this Ordinary that is _nothing_ like any Ordinary he's seen before, her no-nonsense, upfront, audacious attitude new to him. The humans he'd seen and heard about were all scared shitless of transgenics and all that Manticore represented, and yet here this woman shows none of that. Zero imagines it has a lot to do with her being friends with Max, but still. He has a feeling she'd be fearless even if she'd found out a different way, and wasn't friends with Max.

It's because of this that Zero leads Cindy out into the howling rain towards the old clunker that he figures Max had either missed or thought too ostentatious. He hopes he does actually remember the process on how to steal a car, and also that Cindy won't want to keep track of him like she and Max had with Dean. He's just not ready for that yet.

Luckily, they seem to be preoccupied with the man Zero had also come to like, so he thinks he's safe. With that, Zero makes quick with the stripping of wires, and in no time, they're heading down the streets, Cindy giving directions like it's every day a transgenic she doesn't know offers to hotwire a vehicle after she'd been knocked unconscious by a maniacal criminal. Nonetheless, as he coaxes the dilapidated car through the roads, he ponders where he'll go next, and if he'll run across Max or Cindy or Dean again.

Probably not.

* * *

Miles away, Dean also wakes again groggily, his head feeling like it's filled with marshmallows, his brain synapses sluggish and half-hearted. He can't stop a groan from escaping once his neurons finally realize that, oh, Dean's in _pain_. He doesn't know how long he was out this time, but he knows that they must've done something more to him, because at least before he'd felt bruised but generally okay, and now he feels like he was friggin' tasered.

Dean's not been tasered that many times, but the _last_ time he was—okay, so maybe it was in part due to his own stupidity, but come on, that damn Rawhead was going to kill those kids, and probably Sam and himself as well—he almost died. Somehow he doubts there's going to be a skeevy faith healer and his psycho wife to save him this time.

He wonders just why the fuck he's _still_ feeling the hurt, considering now that he's a little more aware, this discomfort doesn't remind him quite so much as electricity through his veins as something more…chemical? Dean flexes his arm muscles just enough to become knowledgeable of the things sticking out of his elbows, and he realizes belatedly that he's got IVs jammed in him, both sides.

Getting a _very_ bad feeling about all this—and that's saying something; last time he can remember this feeling, ol' Yellow Eyes was bearing down on him as he lay useless against a headstone; then he'd felt exhilarated—Dean aims to move his arms, rip those fucking needles out as soon as he can.

Except he _can't_. He now feels the cold, harsh metal of restraints across each wrist, way heftier than he's been secured with before, and immediately Dean's heart rate skyrockets. The chains jingle, but aren't anywhere close to breaking, and from the little movement he can make his ankles do, he knows they're shackled as well. He's strapped to a cold metal table, too, and all of it combined pushes his blood pressure nearly to the limit.

Dean snaps open his eyes, and he recognizes the white walls, fluorescent lights, and linoleum as a hospital room; or, at least, one that _resembles_ a hospital room. He looks down his prone body and sees that he's been re-clothed into scrubs like the ones he'd had when he was comatose in South Dakota, plain white T-shirt, blue pants, no socks. This is worse than South Dakota, though: he was basically dead then, freakin' Tessa had told him so; now, he's damn sure he's very much alive.

"Oh look, he wakes."

The voice comes from behind Dean, from where he can't see it, but the words…Dean's breath starts hyperventilating again to match his rapid heart beat, his muscles straining against their metal fetters.

_White-hot manacles fastened over his bleeding wrists. Flaming blades carving across his face, hairline to shoulder. Fire-reddened brands blistering his torso, marking him, making him smell his own flesh burning off his bones. Pliers wielded by scabbed, putrid hands ripping out his teeth, one by one. The instruments held by an innocent-looking little girl, but whose eyes are whiter than death and who snickers, _Oh lookie, he wakes!_ in that child's voice Lilith has plagiarized. Screams he's disembodied from, and yet knows they're his…_

_No…no…I'm out, I'm _out_!_ Dean thinks frantically to himself. _I'm in Seattle! Hell's not…it's…I _can't_ be back…I'm OUT!_

"Sam," Dean chokes out, his throat drier than when he'd first busted out—he _had_ busted out, he _had_! He's—He's sure of it. (Right?) "I'm out! This _isn't_ Hell!"

The voice in back of him laughs, a kind of barren laugh that betrays any semblance of jocularity. "Don't you worry, we'll make it Hell for you," it says.

The man comes around the table Dean's strapped to—and, oh God, what are they going to do to him? _No knives, __please__, I can't…_—wearing a tailored suit, his stature not impressively tall, but the cold air and unforgiving face masked by chiseled features and combed hair are more than enough compensation. And—wait…Dean's seen this guy before.

"Who are you?" Dean whispers, the tears that were so close to being released now halting, Dean realizing that he's got to be back in Seattle. Or at least this demon is familiar to him. What had Dean called him again? Oh, yeah. _Suit_.

Suit's thin lips curl into a sinister smile, and he steps closer to Dean, seeming to delight in the panic reflected in his prize's eyes. "Don't give me that," says Suit, his expression so similar to Lilith's that Dean expects him to shrink and his brown eyes morph into white. "We're well-acquainted, aren't we, 494? We've spoken previously, but seems you've managed to escape that little contingency I placed on you. What kind of man would I be if I ignored that? Can't play favorites, you know."

Dean's breath hitches for a moment at this. There's that epithet _again_. And he's still just as confused about it as ever. Hell's demons had called him _so many things_, even incorporated salacious numbers, but never put an inflection on it so that it sounded like an actual name. He guessed they'd never come up with a number that would really serve as anything torturous to Dean.

But this man…he acted once more like the numbers should mean something to Dean, like Dean should feel chilled or furious at them or something. It's this that completes Dean's body coming down from its peaking overload, lungs and heart gasping for replenishment. Dean's bound to a table, and the man used words that Lilith and Alastair and _so many others_ had used, but when he focuses his senses on whether the room is purely _real_, on whether it has that dark aura around it that Hell's visions had always brought, he finds nothing except solidity.

Truth. And, regardless of what level of dangerous situation he's in now—and he knows he is—he's more relieved than anything else. _Earth's_ dangers he can deal with. It's _Hell's_ that he can't.

His body now for the most part under his control, Dean tries to ascertain a way to get his ass out of here. Wherever "here" is. He assumes there's at least some sort of entrance or exit somewhere behind him, be it an archway or door or whatever, because he's pretty sure the guy didn't just materialize, but there's no door or window of any sort in Dean's eyeline, no way of breaking out that direction.

Dean then, ignoring the pleased, almost entertained, expression on the unknown man's face, examines the restraints he's wearing. They're not the usual leather and metal clasps that one would see in a psychiatric ward or a general hospital or wherever; they're hardcore, thick, welded titanium, if not freaking _tungsten_, and, far as Dean can tell, hardy enough to hold a friggin' tiger.

He's a bit amused (as amused as his broken psyche can be at the moment) that they thought him so much a threat as to go this far, but really, it's kind of overkill. He's been subdued and sufficiently kept in check with just a few wraps of rope, a chair, and a gag; titanium cuffs are…odd.

"Look, pal," Dean says, clearing his throat to get his voice at least a _tad_ more imposing, "it's bad enough when real evil monologues, worse when humans do. So get on with whatever you're planning to do to me or let me go, you son of a bitch."

Dean never really puts much thought into diatribes he gives, but usually they result in some sort of anger. If not anger, then maybe maniacal laughter, sometimes both, and sometimes his adversary bashes his head in with something to shut him up that way. They don't just stare as creepily as before at him and smile. Which is what the man does, and Dean's not liking it one bit. In fact, this thing is getting weirder and weirder by the second, and he's hating this fucked, Kubricked version of Oz.

"That's always the way with you X5s," Suit fake-ponders aloud. "To think, you could have come to be such an asset, and it's all wasted on smartass remarks and stolen scotch."

_X5?_ Dean usually prides himself on being able to obtain as much information about a situation as possible, and accurately extrapolate things from them, but he's treading water on this one. He keeps attempting to get back to his planning how he's going to escape from this place, and then Suit says something else totally mental, and Dean doesn't know how to take it.

The only possible card that Dean may hold is that he's pretty sure Suit is mistaking him for someone totally different. And not "different" as in Dean's shapeshifter double, but "different" as in someone completely not Dean. All he's gathered of this other person is that he perhaps goes by the name 494—whatever that stands for—and is, what, part of some special business or military faction? X5 sounds ominous enough for that. But even with those two pieces of information, it's way too sketchy for even Dean to act on. He's reckless and impulsive sometimes, sure, but Dean's not _stupid_.

So, when in doubt: stall. Or, in Dean's case, antagonize the guy until you get the intel you need.

"Hey now, don't be like that," Dean taunts facetiously, wishing he had his Colt M1911 resting inside his waistband to fortify him. He manages to morph his face into a shit-eating grin, centering his self-control to not show the pain he's still most definitely in. "I like a nice Cabernet if the occasion calls for it. But you look more like an amaretto and Irish Cream kinda guy yourself."

Okay, now that was definitely an irritated twitch, Dean observes with satisfaction. Tip number one for riling guys up: assume and then ridicule their alcohol preferences. In Dean's experience, it works every time. Apparently, Suit isn't immune. Moreover, just that tiny spasm in Suit's façade ups Dean's ego to a certain degree. Dean went to Hell, and yet his famed power of irking people remains intact.

"You know," says Suit, handling curiously the IV drip bags to the right of Dean, "you're looking rather off, 494. Strain of being trapped in that cesspool of a 'city' too much for you? Too bad, I expected you to last longer."

Dean's eyes narrow as he tries to comprehend Suit's newest words. From the way he said it, it sounded like he wasn't referring to Seattle in general…is there a city _inside_ of Seattle that Dean had somehow missed or something? Some underground society thing? What kind of role is this "494" person supposed to be—or, more likely, still, since Dean's in that guy's place (and what the fuck is up with that, Dean would like to know)—playing in that city? Dean's not too fond of questions. At all.

He sighs, just for the hell of it giving the restrains another sizable yank. If anything, they move even _less_ than when Dean had jarred them before. Super. "Strain? Nah, I've had worse," Dean replies conversationally, disliking the brutal truth in his own words, though knowing Suit doesn't pick up on it. "Just thought a little sightseeing would be nice. What with Seattle looking so postcard-y this time of year. Rain and dereliction, gotta love it."

Suit takes a breath, Dean's impertinence obviously shortening his temper. The good thing is, Dean thinks, that he appears to be impersonating this 494 guy well enough. Suit hasn't seemed to think they're two separate people just yet, anyhow.

That said, though, Dean's starting to wonder…how is it that someone who's obviously got means, knowledge, and opportunity could mix up two people so badly? Not even realize he's _talking to_ the wrong one? Dean's brain sends him a memory, one of when Cindy and Max were discussing the plausibility of him being a clone or whatever. Dean was pretty out of it, but the recollection of _that_ conversation is crystal clear to him.

So maybe…is it possible Suit is under the same impression Cindy and Max were? That Dean's a clone of someone else? Maybe even one of the _other_ clones? It would fit the situation, Dean thinks, but how's he supposed to even wrap his head around it, let alone spin it to his advantage? Really, _clones_? It's way too _Star Wars _for him.

"Well, sorry, man," Dean says, continuing with completely speaking out of his ass, "you're not my type. Try the brothel next town over."

"I should have known," Suit says, like Dean had told him something in confidence. "X5-452. Guess your affinities for being pains in my ass are appealing to yourselves. Ironic, really, considering I heard you two were rather against breeding together. Though, I suppose she _is_ the best out of your slim pickings."

Dean makes a small choking noise in his throat, caught totally off-guard for a minute. _Breeding_?! What is he, a stud horse? Sure, he's had his fair share of women, but he would never call it _breeding_. And for that matter, who is X5-452? Obviously someone similar to whoever 494 is, and apparently they're in close proximity to one another, and maybe it'd help if Dean knew who either one is, but he doesn't. It's really starting to piss him off.

"Okay, I don't know what the hell your deal is, dude," Dean says, shifting around in the cuffs. He's virtually back to nonchalance in terms of being shackled down, now that he knows it's by a meager human, and not by anyone that can _truly_ hurt him, "but I've really got better things to do than star in your creepy fantasies while you get your jollies off of my bondage here. So why don't you just get back to watching porn like a normal person?"

Suit chuckles, and bends down to lean closer to Dean's face. "You're right about me getting pleasure from this," he says. "However, it's far from what you presumed. No, I'm wanting more…well, let's just say you're here for a little transaction. And, if it can be wrangled, bait."

_Bait?_ Dean thinks. _What the fuck for? No one in this jacked reality even knows who I am, let alone I'm out of Hell._ "It won't work," Dean says with conviction. "No one'll come for me."

"We'll see about that," says Suit with a smug smile. "452 has a propensity for saving mutants like yourself. I'm sure you rank high on her list. Last I heard, you two were running your little clubhouse over there. Undoubtedly there've been some…_behind the scenes_ tactics discussions."

Dean doesn't miss the badly veiled euphemism, and although he still doesn't know who 494 is, apparently Suit thinks he and whoever 452 is have some kind of relationship. Dean's not sure whether to dispute it or not. "Yeah, well, what can I say," Dean smirks, going with the latter…sort of. "I'm somewhat of a catch."

Suit purses his lips. "You think you're funny," he says rhetorically.

Dean can't help it. The setup is just too good. "I think I'm adorable," he answers with a grin that has more to do with Suit uttering Henricksen's line than anything else.

"I'll put it this way," says Suit, Dean's flippancy getting on his nerves. "Give me 452, and you can go on your way. I'll even not put anything on your brainstem this time."

The phrasing reminds Dean vaguely of what _that demon_ had offered, but it just doesn't have the same punch this time. Even if Suit decides to torture him—which, in all honesty, Dean would put some money down that he would—the farthest he could go would be to kill him. As opposed to Hell, where, by all natural standards, Dean would be sliced beyond life, yet the demons could still inflict their will upon him. It puts things in perspective, if nothing else.

Although he doesn't exactly feel loyalty to 452 or 494—chiefly because, again, he doesn't know them—he gets a sick joy in annoying this guy. "No can do, Armani," Dean replies lightly. "Changing positions only works on the second date."

Suit sighs, expecting this. It's not like he is under any illusions that 494 would give in easily. "We'll see about that," he declares. "Maybe a little diphenhydramine will change your mind."

Dean assumes this is some kind of nasty drug, and indeed, Suit sucks up some clear liquid from a bottle into a syringe and plunges it into one of Dean's IVs. He thinks the amount is kind of high, but soon, ice runs through his veins, and he feels all his senses starting to go haywire. Dean imagines he would previously have screamed, or at least writhed in pain, but, all things considered, this is pretty light stuff. He can't help clenching and unclenching his fists—it's not like this is making a fucking daisy chain here—but other than that, he gives no reaction.

Suit, understandably, has no idea Dean went to Hell (or even that Dean is Dean), so he simply figures that because "494"'s system is stronger than a normal human's, the drug would take longer to affect him. Regardless that he'd doubled the dosage. Well, quadrupled, if one were going by the recommended maximum. Essentially, all he'd given his captive was the main ingredient in Benadryl—a generally harmless medicine—but in high concentrations…well.

Thus his expectation for "494" to start with the symptoms soon. Okay, so it's no secret that Suit doesn't know everything about transgenics; plus, for all he's aware, Manticore had made 494 along the same lines of perfection as 452. Indubitably, according to the few employees of Manticore he'd talked with, 494 was one of their prize X's. Even ignoring that Berrisford disaster, he was a stellar soldier. Granted, his barbed tongue, insolence, and stamina are equally as legendary, but despite this, 494 isn't invincible.

Suit knows he has some time before he anticipates 452 possibly finding her partner—well, that and, in the state he expects "494" to be in soon, the transgenic would likely prove unhelpful—so he calmly walks out of the room, intending to confer with his right-hand man. Otto may not be quite as versed with 452 and 494 as he is, but nevertheless, the man is a good sounding board. Besides, maybe he can come up with new techniques. Even Ames White doesn't know _all_ of them.


	12. Chapter XI: Twice the Pleasure

A/N: Same stuff applies as in the first chapter. Oh, and unfortunately I neither own _Supernatural_ nor _Dark Angel_. Just this.

A/N part two: 48 days and counting till episode 11. Argh.

A/N part three: Specific episodes of _Supernatural_ mentioned are: none. Specific episodes of _Dark Angel _are: "Pilot" and "Gill Girl."

* * *

**Of Desire and the Status Quo**

_**Chapter XI: Twice the Pleasure to Deceive the Deceiver

* * *

**_

"Explain to me just exactly why this isn't working!" White commands to the lab tech that had supplied him with the chemicals that were _supposedly_ able to coerce even a transgenic into spilling their guts. So far, all that's managed to happen is for White to get a migraine. "We've dosed him with all your little mind has provided, and he's not broken. You've got ten seconds to convince me _not_ to kill you."

"I don't know, sir," says the tech, looking much like he doesn't. "I can't tell you why he hasn't shown more promising symptoms. It's like his brain is refusing to accept the drugs."

Furious, White pulls out a Browning from its holster and points it at the tech's head. "That all you have to say?"

"I-I _don't_ know why!" the tech whimpers, his demeanor changing rapidly from the stony-faced torturer he'd been when handing various chemicals over to White to dope up Dean. "B-But I think he'll need some s-serotonin soon, or he'll start convulsing."

"Seizures," White states, familiar with the skewed wiring of the transgenics'. "Well, a little earthquake in his head ought to loosen his tongue, no doubt."

"All due respect, sir," says the tech, and White raises an eyebrow, daring the underling to counter him, "I believe that wouldn't be productive. It would delay any further chances of interrogation."

Much as he has distaste for the man in front of him, White accedes that he's right in this instance. Seizures would certainly be a form of torture that White would thoroughly enjoy, but it isn't like White has all the time in the world—especially, given that he's got (or thinks he has) the co-leader of the transgenic front currently on his lab table—and he needs "494" as conscious as possible.

Everyone cracks at some point. White just needs to have a little more patience until then.

Disregarding the tech, White strides into the lab, where he'd spent an aggravating amount of time in already, and used up some of every chemical—and physical torment as well, of course. Dean is limp in the restraints, and though his eyes register that White's back in the room, they're wet with uncontrolled tear ducts, bleary and bloodshot with rapidly dilating and contracting pupils, his muscles rippling with various spasms from now unidentifiable drugs.

"F-Frustrated yet?" Dean grinds out, his mouth one of the few things still working. He imagines White (for he'd finally figured out the guy's name) orchestrated it that way. "Or g-got some other f-fun in mind?"

White smiles indulgently at his charge, and he's itching to concoct a new amalgam of chemicals, but reminds himself that the tech was correct, so instead heads to the bottle of tryptophan, the one bottle he hadn't yet popped open.

Drawing the liquid into a new syringe and inserting it into Dean's overused IV, he remarks, "A little pick-me-up for you bottom-feeder. Don't want you dying on me just yet."

"G-Go to hell," Dean spits, knowing all too well the place is reserved for people just like this sadistic bastard.

White's saying something else, but the heightened dose of the latest drug starts coursing through Dean's drained system, and his neurons again backfire as he's thrust into whirling chaos once more within his own body.

* * *

Dean's not attuned to the fact that there are people on their way to try and bust him free (well, he's not attuned to much of anything currently), but it doesn't negate the fact. Granted, not that one of the pair is especially pleased about it.

"All right, so just for clarifi_cation_," Alec says grumpily, adjusting the dagger sitting uncomfortably against his back, "the plan is to march straight into White's bunker, somehow disable an unknown amount of Familiar guards, locate Dean, rescue Dean, and drag his sorry ass forty miles back to Terminal City?"

Max's silent glance to him says everything.

"Has it yet occurred to you in these thirty miles we've so far run that Dean may not want to go with us?" he continues. His breath is slightly labored, what with their quick pace, but he hadn't yet emptied its reserves. "The guy _did_ kick your ass, you know."

"Would you give it a rest already?"

Alec laughs heartily. "Can't, Maxie," he answers. "It's way too fun reiterating the fact that an Ordinary got the drop on you. It's pretty fucking hilarious, I gotta say."

"He's not just Joe Normal, Alec," Max gripes. "I didn't know his fighting style."

"Whatever helps you sleep," Alec replies. "But just because he's Dean Winchester doesn't let you off the hook. Seriously, you've battled Familiars. You'd think a dude who's _not_ genetically enhanced would be a cinch."

Max growls, putting on a burst of speed, though not at all surprised when Alec joins up a moment later. "Fine, next time _you_ be all knight in shining armor, huh?" she snaps. "Jesus, maybe I should've just done this thing by myself if you're just going to be a girl about it."

She expected him to lob a comeback at her, but when she hears neither that nor the steady footsteps that had matched hers since they'd left T.C., she halts and turns around, to see Alec fuming a few yards behind her, the rain that hadn't yet let up long since plastering his hair to his head. She wouldn't have to have known Alec for nearly a year to see that he's both angered and distressed, and as it is, she also knows that she needs to find out what it is. She has a very shrewd idea, but she is well aware that when it comes to Alec, there's no room for timidity. That, and they don't have time for dillydallying, which is what she's fearing at the minute.

"Alec, what's the deal?" she asks, squinting through the driving rain. (Honestly. Showers aren't necessarily commonplace back at Terminal City, but she'd rather no shower than a freezing cold and drops-like-knives one.)

"Have you _ever_ stuck to one decision?" Alec says flatly. "'Alec, you're the only one who can help me.' 'Alec, maybe I should have just done this by myself.' Christ, make up your mind. Believe it or not, while I want to know why the hell some other dude has my face, I'm not raring to put my life on the line for it. This is a favor to _you_, and you're acting like it's a freaking expectation. Either you want me to help you bust open White's hold, or you don't. Choose one, would you?"

Max looks at Alec with an expression of affront. She's not unaccustomed to Alec's mockery or derision—his first actions to her _were_ to oppose and nearly rape her, after all (okay, so that last she no longer holds against him, since it wasn't his fault, but _still_)—but this back and forth that she has to admit they both have is getting to her. It's clear that she doesn't think her _potential_, _perhaps_, _maybe_ waffling is incredibly ruinous, and it's also clear that not only does Alec think it is, but he also possesses second thoughts about everything.

Which, okay, is understandable. After all, he is on his way to help retrieve his lookalike from the transgenics' sworn enemy's locked-down bunker. It's a little stressful.

"Here's the deal," Max says, peering up at Alec through the watery torrents. "Dean—and probably us as well—is a dead man if we can't even cooperate on getting _into_ the bunker. We can go back to being at each other's throats when this mission is over, but for now, we need to be on the same page. Okay?"

Alec's emotionless for a second before grinning and punching Max in the arm. "Get your ass in gear then," he says, and surges forward, leaving Max to incense as she realizes she'd let Alec get one over on her _again_.

"Ah, hell no," she mutters, sprinting to catch up to him. Since Dean is their prime directive at the moment, she won't retaliate just yet, but mark her words, she's remembering that little insolence of Alec's.

They manage to make it the rest of the way without incident, owing likely to the fact that both transgenics are cold and unhappy and unsure about this whole thing, and even Alec has a threshold to where he doesn't have the drive to annoy Max for the time being. Max is pretty okay with that.

It's not so much the distance or time that lets them know that they've reached the outskirts of their destination so much as the sign they come across; the wood is rotted, and the post is lopsided, but the words "Fort Worden State Park" are readable enough. Since they hadn't passed any parks or forests of any real significance since now, not to mention this place looks fairly similar to what Dix had brought up on the satellite feed, they surmise this is their destination.

"Nice digs," Alec comments quietly, his and Max's eyes zooming into the park and catching sight of a large gray building. Max glares at him. "I'm just saying. Hiding out in a former state park and setting up a torture chamber. Kinda ironic, really."

"Let's just go," says Max curtly. "And pay attention."

"That mermaid thing was _one time_!"

Both know Alec's exclamation is not only true, but has been proven on many occasions succeeding the debacle with White and the two gilled transhumans, so Max decides not to object it just now. It was she, after all, who had said that they needed to halt their differences until they saved Dean; she doesn't like being a hypocrite very much. (Although Alec would refute that fact.)

For all Alec's faults, however, he does know how to be a fantastic soldier, and it's at times like these that Max sees just why Manticore had capitalized so much on Alec's skills at clandestinity and being the guy who shoots people before they even knew someone was watching. Those skills, she reluctantly notes, will come in handy for this particular mission. Oh, she wants to get in and out dropping as few people as she can—not because she wants to spare their lives, but because the more commotion the worse it would be—but she's not so naïve as to think there won't be more than one casualty tonight.

She just hopes it's not she, Alec, or Dean who falls into that category.

Her suddenly darkened thoughts are shut off when she feels a pressure against her hand. Looking down, she sees Alec pressing the handle of an object she'd sworn never to use into her palm. She shies away, staring at Alec in betrayal—he hadn't seriously thought she'd _accept that godforsaken thing_?

"Take it, Max," Alec says, his eyes boring into hers. "You probably won't have to use it, but just in case…"

"Alec, I'm not touching that," she replies pushing away the gun forcefully. "Maybe you weren't there when it happened, but I thought you would've respected my decision."

Alec groans in frustration. "We could very well die going in there," he proclaims, gesturing broadly to the compound, "and neither of us is doing this without a weapon. _Take it_."

She sees the merit in his argument, knows it's sound, and for a few seconds thinks she sees concern in his face, the kind of concern that's not strictly fear-of-op-failure. Pursing her lips, she moves her arm past his hand holding the wretched device, and reaches around him to where she knows he'd stashed a dagger in his waistband. He makes noises of protest as she touches him, and then they turn to disgruntlement when she snatches the knife away and slides it into her own combat boot.

"Satisfied?" she snaps, briefly wondering just how much more armament Alec had managed to affix to his person.

"No," Alec responds, irked, and grudgingly keeps the gun for himself, its cool metal too familiar than Alec would like. "But then rarely anything you say does."

Before she can work up a rejoinder to his insult (and damn, it's already happened twice that he's had the last word; it's _not_ supposed to go down that way), he's deadly silence as he moves through the thickening underbrush that hadn't been groomed for a decade. The pistol is held deceptively loosely but precisely at his side, the glinting silver highlighting all that she hates about it.

Alec doesn't look behind him to see if Max was trailing, and she hadn't yet, but hell if she's backing down _now_, let alone letting him do this by himself, so she promptly follows his steps, making just as little noise as he had. The complex reminds her eerily of Manticore, even if the actual design isn't very similar; she thinks it's the intent behind the two groups that causes the connection. She's also aware that she's more astute than when she was a kid, able to perceive all the bunker's defenses.

Better than that, this time she's got an X5 who knows the kinds of defenses even more intimately than she does, and one who she's positive she can count on to have her back. He may be a pain in the ass who doesn't do paperwork, but if it came down to it—and she _really _hopes it doesn't—she's certain Alec would rather get her out of harm's way (okay, them _both_ out of harm's way) than Dean. She's not ecstatic over that, since Dean's important too, but the thought counts or whatever people say, right?

Her night vision allows her to spot the two bogeys doing their rounds, and though she starts to sharply whisper this to Alec, he's already motioning to her in the hand signals Manticore instilled in them how to avoid the cronies. There's no error in his plan, so she stays any discussion, and indeed, they skillfully avoid both Familiars, blending themselves in with the shadows. She's just glad the bunker doesn't have constant floodlights like Manticore had. They could get around them, definitely, but she'll take any good fortune she can.

They spot a door about a dozen yards from their current point, and on the count of three, they both move, black outfits camouflaging with the cover of night (she's really glad White had been kind enough to kidnap Dean while it's still dark outside). Max tries the handle, but their luck doesn't extend that far, a control panel to the right of the door glaringly telling them that a code is needed.

She'd be able to crack it, but Alec apparently isn't inclined to go that route. Pushing her out of the way and backing up himself, he aims the pistol and fires one shot, busting the panel with bright orange sparks. He'd shot before she could tell him the sound would be too loud, but he'd been one step ahead of her, having already appended a silencer to the barrel, and though it wasn't completely soundless, she doesn't hear any rapid footsteps and yelling from the guards yet, so that's a plus.

Alec doesn't waste any time in wrenching open the heavy—and unfortunately creaking—door, holding it open as Max runs through and then following her. They're faced with numerous pathways down which they could go, and unsure of the correct one. Dix had provided them with coordinates to the base, but not blueprints, which is really a detriment to them right now. It isn't like they'd thought this would be a cakewalk, per se, but they hadn't wanted it to be incredibly complicated, either.

Max and Alec exchange identical looks of dismay, realizing they've hit a major snag in Max's MacGyvered plan. "An idea would be nice," Alec hisses, anxiously listening for any imminent enemy attack. "Is it such a hard thing for the guy to scream or something? I swear, Max, if he's dead and we're risking our hides for a corpse—"

She slaps the back of his head sharper than usual, wishing she could outright yell at him, but knowing she can't without giving away their positions. "Just—come on. This way."

Alec rolls his eyes, but since he doesn't have any ideas of his own, he goes along with her decision, choosing a random hallway and running down it with purpose, like they actually know where they're headed. Alec thinks their prosperity won't stretch to the point that they'll hit wherever Dean's being held on the first hallway, but he just hopes that it won't be the _last_ hallway, either. He'd like to conserve as much energy as possible, considering they've not only got a forty-mile return trip, but they'll be accompanied by a psychopath, too. Awesome.

* * *

White's leaning against the wall of the lab, watching Dean exhibit signs of duress, and doesn't do anything about it. He's interrupted from his observation by the same tech that had suggested the tryptophan, the man walking in with more displeasure than trepidation.

"_Now_ what?" White demands, wanting to get back to injecting Dean with countless chemicals.

"Sir, we've got a situation," he says.

White groans, but follows the tech into the surveillance room, peering at cameras. The tech presses some keys, bringing up a feed from a few minutes ago. At first White doesn't see anything in the grainy video, but then he catches the minutest of movements by the bunker entrance, a sharp blast, then tiny pixels of light, followed by a tinny squeaking that, accompanied with everything else, can be none other than that respective door.

"Care to tell me how we were infiltrated? And by _whom_?" White seethes, planning to terminate more than one guard for their incompetence.

The tech doesn't want to inflame White's ire any more than it already is, but dishonesty hasn't gotten him any further in White's graces than honesty has. "That's unclear," he says flatly. "We haven't picked them up on any of the internal feeds, but we're working on it."

"You won't," White bites out, knowing it's the truth. "452 is too good for that."

"You think she's one of them?"

White scoffs. "If it wasn't for your medical expertise, I would have shot you days ago," he says tiredly. "You think I was lying to 494 in there? Of _course_ she'd come after that scum. I had hoped she'd take longer, but then, Manticore did make them perfection."

"What do you want to do with them, sir?" asks the tech.

"The only one anyone needs to be concerned about is 452. The other is expendable. Take it down," White commands. "Try to bring back 452 alive, but at this point, she's been tiresome for too long. Kill her if you must."

"Yes, sir," replies the tech. "Um…and regarding 494?"

Smiling, White regards Dean through the observation glass. "Leave him," he says. "He still has use."

"Yes, sir."

* * *

"I _know_ we've been down this hallway before," Alec comments in a whisper, he and Max having undeniably gone down several corridors already. "Yeah, I specifically remember this smudge reading _We're never gonna find Dean_."

"Shut up," Max says, though she's not sure Alec's not wrong that they've stepped down this way. "He has to be here somewhere."

Alec pauses, sighing. "Does he?" he asks. Max turns to look at him inquiringly. "Think about it. Just 'cause we assumed White took him here doesn't mean he actually did. Maybe we were mistaken."

"Oh great, you choose to be indecisive _now_?" Max retorts, beginning to walk again, trying to quell the feeling of unease that there hasn't been any commotion whatsoever so far. She's glad there hasn't been, but…no alarms raised isn't always a good thing.

"Stop attacking—" Alec begins to retaliate, but cuts himself off, his eyes wandering and head quirked slightly to the left.

Max looks at him in confusion, knowing the expression, the one that says clearly he's sensed something (and she can't help but think it also resembles a cat sensing an electrical storm or earthquake or something, a notation she's not happy with). She hadn't necessarily, but despite their quarrel, she can see in his face that he's not joking about this, the faint laugh lines around his mouth no longer etched in humor.

"What is it?" she asks quietly, traipsing lightly over to him.

"I don't know," Alec replies slowly. "Just…" Immediately, his eyes widen a little, and he throws himself at Max, tackling them both to the ground.

"What the _hell_, Alec?" Max wants to yell, but is stopped by a sudden barrage of gunfire that lands right where their heads had been. She looks up at Alec from her position on the floor, and stoically says, "Oh. Thanks."

"What do you say we move?" Alec suggests calmly, like they're not in the middle of being surrounded.

"Great idea," Max agrees without a second thought, and Alec gets into a low, defensive stance, and pulls Max along with him as they race along the hallway, Dean still their objective, but their urgent one being to not get decapitated by carefully aimed projectiles.

"I don't suppose you have an actual plan, do you?" Max asks hopefully, ducking as another bullet flies above her. (This is why she hates guns. Pesky fuckers.) "Besides this, I mean."

"I'm working on it," Alec says and, spying a large indent running along the top of the walls, Alec alerts Max's attention to it.

Like they'd choreographed it ahead of time, Alec clasps his hands together, creating a foothold for Max to gain extra height and hoist herself into the indent. (She would have jumped, the ability well within her range, except this required more finesse than simple vaulting.) Having some inches on her, Max only has to reach her hand down for Alec to gain his own place in the depression.

"Now what?" Max gripes, grateful to be out of the direct line of fire, but also quite cognizant that they're still trapped, regardless of the precious time Alec had bought.

"We see where the gunfire is coming from," Alec answers. "Theoretically it'll lead us to where Dean's being held."

"How do you figure?"

"What else would they need to protect in this joint?" he counters. "They must've caught us on some camera, figured we're here to get Dean out, which, you know, they're sorta right about. Unless White's got some super special weaponry or something that no one's supposed to know about—which I doubt, since he seems hell bent on eliminating us through cruder means—Dean's the only thing he's got worth anything. Or, rather, supposedly worth something."

Max lets the jibe pass in favor of accepting Alec's conclusions. "Okay, it's something to try, I guess," she says.

It isn't exactly a lead, but it's the best they've gotten so far. Her body as concealed as possible, she closes her eyes and tries to cut out the ricocheting of bullets, her and Alec's breathing, and the dull patter of rain outside in order to isolate best she can the source of the gun triggers, the initial _click-echo_ of cartridges being discharged from their housing.

It's difficult, but ultimately she's about eighty percent sure she's got the direction, and God knows they've gone on much less. "There," she says, pointing away and off to their right.

Alec trusts her deduction, and they simultaneously drop from their quasi-hiding place, dodging their way over to the hallway where Max had guessed. To cement that fact, as they move closer, it does seem to get louder, and though there's guns going off in other directions, this is at least a place to start.

Max begins to run down the corridor, but Alec puts a hand in her chest and ducks around the corner instead. There's three precisely placed shots, and then Alec motions for her; as she does so, she sees three men lying on the floor, guns beside them and being quickly invaded by pools of sticky blood. She doesn't bother to comment—she's vehemently adverse to using guns, but she can't argue that they're effective, not to mention that she'd probably have had a hard time avoiding three rifles worth of ammo since she's armed only with a dagger.

Hurrying across the tiling, Max quickly scans Alec's movements to see if he'd been hit by anything, and gratefully doesn't see any obstruction to his kinesthesia. Either he'd evaded everything, or only suffered a graze, both of which are circumstances she's fine dealing with. They'll have a difficult enough time trying to rescue Dean without worrying about blood loss. With Alec's luck, it'd probably be in the shoulder, too. _Again._

There's two more guards they meet within the next minute, this time Max getting the opportunity to incapacitate them, given that they were looking the wrong way at the time, and Max doesn't doubt Alec has more magazines and weapons on him, but it's better to prolong the ammunition they have. The two soldiers join their dead comrades, Max not wanting to have killed them, but knowing they're Familiars and even if she did punch them into unconsciousness, there's no way of telling how long they'd be out. So her knife—well, technically Alec's knife—is now lathered in blood, but she can't bother to pay it any notice right now.

They round the next corner, and Max sighs in relief: through a large glass window, they see a metal table and a body lying prone on it. It doesn't take Alec's wide eyes and good amount of shock to infer that it's Dean. "Wait," Alec says, finding his voice. "Where's White?"

"Probably gone," Max says with a certain amount of regret. "Him and whoever else was torturing Dean."

Alec would also like nothing more than to put lead through White's skull, but he's also thinking that Max may be right. They still don't know White's motives for kidnapping Dean, but right now even Alec will say that they need to get Dean out of here. Preferably before they _all_ become captives of White's creepy factions.

Max darts over to the door and yanks it open, running over to the table. Alec looks both ways down the corridor and drops one last guard before slamming the door closed and throwing the deadbolt into place. He's willing to bet the glass is bulletproof, and they'll need to open the door sooner or later, but for now, until they unlatch Dean from the table, he'd much rather they don't get shot at.

"Let's hurry this up, shall we?" Alec asks impatiently, coming over to Max's side. "Oh. _Shit_."

As he looks down at Dean's form, he has a feeling this may not be as easy as he'd hoped.


	13. Chapter XII: How the Mighty Have Fallen

A/N: Same stuff applies as in the first chapter. Oh, and unfortunately I neither own _Supernatural_ nor _Dark Angel_. Just this.

A/N part two: Google informs me that Hanukkah starts tomorrow, so for all those who celebrate it, I hope you have a lovely holiday!

A/N part three: Specific episodes of _Supernatural_ mentioned are: none. Specific episodes of _Dark Angel_ mentioned are: "Pilot."

* * *

**Of Desire and the Status Quo**

_**Chapter XII: Oh, How the Mighty Have Fallen

* * *

**_

There's a fight going on behind him, Dean's pretty sure, but his vision is decorated in a kaleidoscope of blurry black and sparkly dots, and he thinks he's hyperventilating, so he wouldn't bet cash money on it. He can feel, though, and amidst the violent carnage his nervous system is trying to commit, there's an inferno in his veins, and broken glass shredding his tissues. He doesn't even know if he's screaming or crying or anything, all he knows is that, pathetically, this isn't even the worst agony he's been in. In fact, in comparison to a few choice decades in Hell, this is mild irritation.

Through his fucked eyesight, there's a brownish blur at his side, and he thinks it's a person, a woman, because part of the blob is head-sized and the edges are darker than the center (hair and a face, he's presuming). He desperately tries to focus, but it's like he's permanently crossing his eyes.

"Dean!" the blob yells, and now he _knows_ it's a person, and the voice sounds remarkably similar to Max's, although that's strange, because he doesn't know how she would find him, or that she'd cared. After all, he _had_ knocked her rather violently into unconsciousness. "Dean, can you hear me?"

Dean knows what it's saying, but he's afraid that if he tries to speak, the shakes he's in are going to cause his teeth to bite right through his lip. He'd really like to avoid any more injuries if possible.

Max—though he doesn't know how she's here, Dean's more sure than not that the blob is Max—rapidly wrenches out the two IVs in Dean's arms, and then pulls on the restraints, but they don't budge. On a rapid-fire thought, she grabs the lone bottle on the tray next to the table and looks at the label. There, in block letters, reads TRYPTOPHAN, and the liquid is almost gone. Max's blood runs cold, the complement to Dean's severe hyperthermia.

She looks behind Dean, to where he guesses there's someone else, and orders, "ALEC! Get your ass over here _now_ and help me!"

The name she said strikes a chord in Dean's brain, but his thoughts are too fuzzy to know why, or even care. He's certainly never met anyone named Alec. Right? A half-second later, another blob comes on the other side of Dean and looks up at Max. "Help with what?"

"The cuffs, you jackass!"

"Max, they've got to be fucking titanium! I can't break these!"

"_Try_, damn it, Alec!"

The second blob turns to Dean's manacles and looks for a breaking point. He mutters an impressive litany of profanities, including some that Dean's pretty positive aren't in English, but starts pulling on the restraints, vocalizing grunts of exertion. (Also some words that sound like "This is way too trippy anyway. Fucking clones," but that doesn't make any sense, so Dean ignores it.)

"Dean," Max says, and Dean moves his almost non-existent vision to her face. "Dean, if you can hear me, move or say something, _anything_."

"Jesus, why don't you just give the guy a lollipop and a snuggle," Alec snaps, still yanking on the restraints.

Dean's had just about enough with it all, both with Alec's (whoever he is) drama queen griping and Max's coddling. So he does what she asks, and moves something. More precisely, concentrates all he has into flipping Alec off. He's still violently spasming, but Dean's sure he succeeded.

"What the hell?" Alec demands, and Dean internally smirks.

For Max's part, she exhales a sigh of relief. "Dean, listen to me," she insists, and Dean figures he can do that and still be pissed without her knowing. "I think White overdosed you with serotonin and it's causing your seizures. Just hold on, Dean, we're going to fix it." Then she stares into his eyes, but they're not doing the same; rather, his pupils are dilated, and he can't seem to focus. Max turns to Alec, panicked. "Alec, something's wrong with his eyes, he's not able to center on anything."

Alec pauses in his attempt to break the cuffs—he's made a tiny bit of headway, he thinks—and looks over at Max, feeling beads of sweat at his hairline. X5s were built for stamina and strength, but the whole _purpose_ of these manacles is to hold those very transgenics, and just because Dean isn't one doesn't change that fact. Or the one where Alec's muscles are _not_ having fun.

Still, he glances down at Dean's face, and Max was right, Dean's eyes—Alec's own eyes—aren't steady. Max is staring at Alec like she wants him to come up with some miracle cure, and he wants to help, but he kind of daydreamt his way through Pharmacology back at Manticore…

"Max, White must've thought he was me," Alec says in newfound realization after a moment, flipping through his cerebral Rolodex of medicine, and feeling guilt start to seep in. "He guessed I needed the supplements and gave to Dean what a transgenic would usually require. It's toxic at those dosages in humans, Max. Delirium, hallucinations, a hundred and six degree temp, seizures, tachycardia…"

"What can we do?" Max asks desperately, her fingers nervously raking through Dean's hair.

Alec hates times like these, where he's expected to be an expert at something that he's just _not_. Max wants him to be an accredited pathologist, but he's _not_. He knows a little about a lot of things, and a lot about some things, but what to do in case your maybe-clone is overdosed with a lethal concentration of an amino acid by a sociopath who can't feel pain is not in Alec's admittedly expansive repertoire. But he's definitely good at bullshitting and improvising, so that's what he plans on doing. He sends a mental apology to Dean in case he, you know, accidentally kills the guy or something.

Alec drops his shoulders. "Not much. Just treat any symptoms we can," Alec proposes bleakly. "But we can't do that with him chained up like this, and much as you may think my strength is inexhaustible—and I'd be _ever _so flattered if you did—it's not. What I do know, though, is that if the guy keeps going on like this, his neurons are going to short out and probably cause brain damage. Not to mention he could black out before that due to friggin' oxygen deprivation from the heightened BP, and then we'd be in even _more_ shit, and who knows what crap we'd have to give him to—"

"ALEC!" Max yells, cutting off his rant. "Dean's not gonna die, I won't let him. Now go find a way to cut through that metal, because if something happens to Dean, it's on _your_ head! Move it!"

Alec snarls at her, but blurs out of the room anyway. Max sighs, knowing she's being a bitch, but honestly, that's the only way she knows how to be particularly in a crisis. Plus, Alec just makes it so _easy_ to be a bitching target, and it's not like she could use Dean for that, the reason least of which being that he's about one step away from keeling over.

"Stay with me, Dean," Max orders. Dean's eyes are glassy, but they're roughly aligned with Max's, and she prays that Alec will find something to break the chains in time.

* * *

Alec skids down a hallway, cursing out the labyrinth of a bunker, and regretting not paying much attention to the layout as the guards that had been shooting at him and Max (though that's a good excuse, he reasons). Also the fact that he hadn't anticipated freakin' _titanium_ chains for an Ordinary. He judges Dean as being stronger than most Ordinaries, but he's not _that_ strong. Alec refuses to acknowledge the ego boost he gets from the fact that White had felt it necessary to use such a metal to keep Alec in check. It would just be fundamentally inappropriate.

He's starting to get a little nervous when he sees no one for two hallways now; he would've thought there would be guards swarming as soon as it was noticed Dean had reinforcements coming for him; he hadn't shot _all_ of them as he and Max had sprinted through the compound. He's about to just give up and try to convince Max that he's a good enough shot to simply blow the bonds away with his handgun, when his hypersensitive ears hear a quiet _click_. On pure impulse, Alec jumps into a somersault, and is immediately glad he did, because a barrage of bullets peppers the spot where he'd been standing a moment ago.

He looks up to where the trajectory suggested the shooter is, and his guess is true: a sentry, fit and mid-twenties if Alec has to estimate, is crouched on the landing of a stairwell, the majority of his body hidden by the railing. His hands are steady with a silenced, Marine-grade LSAT rifle, and Alec can't help but eye it with envy.

And then he moves.

So quickly the sniper's eyes are still on the place Alec was, Alec blurs, never in one spot for more than a fraction of a second, and sprints up the first set of stairs. He kicks out, sending the rifle over the edge of the stairs and clattering to the level below. The sniper is next, and Alec puts a fist in his jaw and follows it up with a knee to the solar plexus, sending the guy doubling over himself and onto his knees, staring up at Alec with a glint that can only describe a combination of loathing and determination to not let his injuries keep him down. Unfortunately, Alec's not inclined to allow that to happen.

"Keys! Now!" Alec shouts, holding the soldier up against the wall, his feet dangling twelve inches from the floor.

"What…are you…talking about?" the man chokes, trying vainly to release Alec's vise grip on his throat.

Alec growls, pressing the soldier's larynx tighter. "The man kept in one of the exam rooms on this floor, I know you know who he is!" Alec demands. "You wanna live? Give me the keys to unlock those cuffs!"

"I…can't…"

"Bullshit!" Alec yells, bringing his face closer to the man's, his eyes spitting green fire. "You get five seconds to hand them over or I break your pathetic neck and leave your pretty little wife a widow!"

The sniper's expression, despite his slow asphyxiation, turns to one of terror, with an admirable amount of fury. "Don't…hurt…" he struggles, his breaths gurgling.

Alec bares his teeth, which for all the menace behind them may as well be pointed and sharp as a tiger's, and twists his hand so the man's neck does the same, his vertebrae creaking. All remaining doubt that Alec wouldn't go through with killing him, and maybe his wife, disappears in the man's mind as his neck gets dangerously close to snapped, and he gives Alec an almost imperceptible nod.

The man slides to the ground as Alec shoves his hand away from the guy's neck, coughing and sucking in complete lungfuls of air. "Gun…scope…fake…" the guy manages.

As the soldier watches Alec disappear from his view, he closes his eyes, wondering what all he's done. He doesn't know if White would figure out it was he who helped the X5—no, there had to have been a mistake, he thinks; the person who just blurred off is the X5—escape, but in his mind, it's not like he had a choice. He has no illusions that his attacker wouldn't have slaughtered him, and he isn't about to leave his pregnant wife husbandless if he can help it.

The minute the man speaks, Alec's gone, jumping over the railing to land squarely next to the rifle, ripping off the optical scope. He finds the seam where the two pieces of sight are connected, but instead of a perfect hairline like it should be, there's evidence of welding, and Alec tears it apart, his muscles straining against the hard metal. Finally, it separates, and a silver key falls from the casing. Alec grabs it and blurs away, towards where he hopes he'll find a still-alive Dean.

* * *

"Come on, Alec, hurry up," Max mutters, pacing impatiently. Dean's still convulsing, and though they're less seizure and more hyperreflexia, Max gets the feeling that's even worse. That maybe it means his nervous system is shutting down.

He's covered in sweat, his hair dripping, and when Max last felt his forehead, it was hotter than _her_ temperature usually runs. And considering transgenics' were at a level that in an Ordinary would indicate a fever, well…Max is no medical expert, but she knows an Ordinary's temperature tolerance taps out at around a hundred and six degrees Fahrenheit before the brain starts dying, and Dean's rapidly approaching it, if not already there.

Worse still, all Max can do is wait. She tried getting the restraints off, in whatever manner or with whatever implements she could, but they wouldn't budge. Her own nerves had started to overfire when she heard the gunshots echoing through the corridors, and she has faith in Alec's judgment on his abilities, but she sincerely hopes she's not waiting for nothing, and that Alec's not really rotting in a hallway, riddled with lead.

She drops into a fighting stance, her fists up and legs tensed for movement as she hears footsteps running towards her, but when she sees Alec's lithe, if flushed, form dart into the room, she relaxes. Well, to an extent.

"The hell took you so long?!" she yells, slapping him on the shoulder.

Alec spares a glance at Dean's pale figure, and then takes the key he'd requisitioned and fits it into the locks, agile fingers freeing Dean in a matter of seconds. "Aw, didn't know you worried about me," Alec mocks, moving to pick up Dean.

"What're you doing?" Max questions, watching as Alec decides how best to manage the situation.

"We've got to get him out of here, don't we?" Alec counters. "I just wish we could sedate him or something—I mean, I can carry him easy, but not if he's flailing around like this."

Max looks at Dean's body, at her and Alec's own arms which are holding him down in lieu of the metal cuffs so he doesn't hurt himself inadvertently. "You _sure_ you don't remember anything about the serotonin whatever?" she asks, nearly begs, Alec to think.

Alec rubs a hand over his face, desperately wanting to answer her. Finally piecing together the little he'd learned about Dean's condition from that one job, coming to a verdict, and not liking it at all, Alec orders, "Stick an IV back in him. Our only option is to treat as many symptoms as we can as fast as we can. If this moves as swiftly as I think, there's no way we can get to a hospital in time. Lock the door and then look for some diazepam or lorazepam for the seizures."

Max does as he says, hooking up one of the needles back into Dean's arm and then making sure the deadbolt is still firmly in place. She'd wanted to get Dean out of the damn bunker, but Alec's right—they don't have time for it, _Dean_ doesn't have time for it. Normally, she'd chew Alec out for bossing her around, but at this point, she's beyond being too prideful to not accept help where she can get it. And Alec's definitely better than nothing.

There's a cabinet across the room, and Max goes over to it, her eyes rapidly scanning the long, complicated drug names which aren't in any order that she can discern. Finally, she finds a bottle with the label of DIAZEPAM, and snatches it. Alec's turned towards her, his hands held out, and she tosses it over to him.

Alec draws out some of the fluid—Max briefly wonders if he's just guessing on the dosage, and hopes he's not—and presses the syringe into the tubing, sending the muscle relaxant into Dean's system.

"What next?" Max asks, and if Alec weren't so focused on keeping his clone—or donor, or twin, or whatever the hell Dean is—he'd grin and joke about something concerning Max's dependence on him, but as it is, he can't.

"Need to control the tachycardia," Alec says, his voice clipped and anxious at the fact that he can feel the heat rising from Dean's skin even though he's not in contact with it. "It's—uh…" He stalls on the drug name, feeling as though he'd had it _right there_, and then it popped out of his mind while saluting him the finger. "Shit. It's, like, es—es- something."

Max stares at him, agape, expectant. And then, as a surprise to even herself, she painfully remembers that time in '07 when she oversaw one of her fellow X5s being worked over for the seizures his body had succumbed to. He'd had a fast heart rate as well, and they'd talked about something named—

"Esmolol," Max says suddenly, already searching for the medicine. A few moments later, she extracts that bottle and tosses it to Alec again.

"There's nothing we can do for the fever except cool down his extremities," Alec states, and then gestures to a sink to the left of him. "Dump water, as cold as possible, over him. Hurry. Temp's probably past 106 by now."

She doesn't waste time watching as Alec futzes with Dean's IV, instead going to the sink and turning on the faucet full blast. There's a bucket, for what she really doesn't want to postulate, underneath the sink, and she fills it with the frigid water. Without a second thought, she empties the contents over Dean's body—whose tremors have lessened the slightest bit, she's pretty sure—drenching him, his thin clothes sticking to his skin with a sick mixture of water, sweat, and blood.

Alec grabs the metal tray that had carried all sorts of experimental apparatuses—syringes, scalpels, grafting devices, all things Max had seen used and endured in Manticore—clearing it of everything, and started undulating it over Dean's chest, spurring the heat evaporation on as Max pours more water over him.

After multiple repetitions of this, Max's wide brown eyes meet his above Dean's prone form, a rarely seen naked, worried trust in her gaze, the trust in him, which is rare in and of itself. Alec feels he's done all he can, but it doesn't stop the fear of what would happen if Dean's system decided to completely shut down. So far, the man had fought valiantly, but Alec knows all too well that even the most steadfast of men fail—especially Ordinaries—and if that happens…Alec's afraid Max would never forgive him for it, regardless of that it wouldn't have been his fault.

Max continues her ministrations, however, refusing to acknowledge her brief instant of weakness, and Alec rechecks Dean's blood pressure and temperature. He breathes a ragged sigh of relief when his counting reveals that Dean's heart rate is edging towards only a little faster than normal, and the heat of his skin is no longer scalding. There are still tremors passing through his body, but they're more like aftershocks of an earthquake: worrisome, and potentially dangerous, but ultimately not of staggering import.

Feeling that Dean's shakes are no longer uncontrollable, Alec relaxes his arms, freeing Dean from his suppression. "Pack up what's left of the meds," Alec says to Max, eyeing the at most half-empty drug bottles. "We should go. We'll get Rade to keep him stabilized."

"Read my mind," Max declares, taking off her sweater and wrapping the bottles in it. In spite of everything, she catches Alec's eyes farther south than she'd like. She snaps a glare at him, not needing any words to understand what's running through his head.

Alec shrugs, but abides, and hefts Dean over his shoulder with a grunt, his knees buckling for a second under Dean's dead weight before he adjusts his grip. It's far from the best situation, and definitely the kind of transfer that any medical professional worth their salt would frown upon, but it's the best Alec can do. Plus, it's not like it's enjoyable for Alec, either—what he'd said before about it being easy to pick up Dean? Yeah, he's slightly underestimated Dean's muscle mass, not to mention the fact that Dean's waterlogged at the moment, immediately soaking Alec and darkening his mood. Max, of course, draws up a laugh at his expense. As they're about to head out the room, her eyes catch a stack of darkly-colored precisely folded garments that she vaguely recognizes as Dean wearing before. Amazed that they hadn't just been burned or confiscated or something, Max snatches them and rearranges them with her sweater around the medicine containers, then hurries out ahead of Alec.

The building is remarkably unoccupied—Alec would like to pay that some attention when he's not, you know, busy ferrying a near-dead Ordinary through enemy territory—and apart from a few leftover sentries that Max makes quick work of neutralizing, the three soon find their way out of the building.

Faced with the daunting return trip to Terminal City (and Alec barely restraining a tirade on Max of how she'd proclaimed forty miles with Dean would be nothing…_yeah, right_), they start doing just that, heading through the forest while keeping the road in sight, the only thing working in their favor being that it had temporarily stopped raining.

It's after about twenty minutes of trudging through dense brush that both Max and Alec hear the characteristic rumble of a V6 engine and heavy-duty tires crunching over loose bits of asphalt. Alec and Max exchange loaded glances, both thinking the same thing, and Max nods, blurring away. Alec follows, slower, still remaining out of sight. He adjusts Dean's weight on his shoulders once more, and waits.

* * *

Max gets to the road before the vehicle does, and stands in the middle of it. Having set down the medicine bottles carefully off to the side, she's left in her close-fitting cargo pants and black, midriff-baring tank top, grateful that Manticore made her this way—it made it easier to simultaneously distract and kick ass.

As she'd expected, the four-by-four, camo-painted Jeep Wrangler brakes to a stop a few feet in front of her, both the driver and passenger (likely returning from some field work for White or something) peering at her suspiciously. "Got room for a third, boys?" she inquires coquettishly.

The passenger grins lecherously, and then gives Max her opening as he looks at his companion. Vaulting into an aerial somersault, Max lands on the hard top of the car; keeping a firm hold on the roll bars, she flips down and slams her booted heels into the driver's head, his momentum crashing his skull into the passenger's. The driver is knocked out cold (and if Max guesses right, concussed as well), but the passenger is merely dazed, so she jumps down to the ground and yanks him out of the open window, throwing him unyieldingly into the brush. She does the same with the unconscious driver, not caring where either man lands.

A second later, as if on cue, Alec appears, opening the back doors and setting Dean supinely in the seat, rolling his shoulder where Dean had rested to untwist his muscles. Granting Max the driver's seat, he hops into the one beside her, her foot pressing the accelerator flat to the floor before Alec can even shut the door, a wide grin spread across her face, the thrill of hijacking a ride and knocking out two horny guards getting to her.

Enjoying the infrequent happenstance of Max being overtly happy, Alec returns the smile, leaning back in the seat and enjoying the rush of wind through the open window. After all, he and Max got out of the bunker unscathed, prevented Dean from dying an incredibly painful death—hopefully—and, to top it all off, kicked some ass.

All things considered, a productive night.

* * *

End notes (if you care): Serotonin overdose (official name Serotonin Syndrome) is a real, potentially lethal condition first described in 1959, characterized in part by the symptoms ascribed to Dean in this chapter, and can be caused by many things, including but not limited to: SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors), SNRIs (Serotonin-Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitors), MAOIs (Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors), amphetamines, and, as attributed above, tryptophan. There is no real treatment besides treating the individual symptoms, which is much of what makes the condition so fatal (death can occur within hours), but if the offending medication can be removed quickly enough, the symptoms can reverse within twenty-four hours with aid of medications such as cyproheptadine.

The LSAT (Lightweight Small Arms Technologies) rifle is a developmental assault rifle, currently slated for development completion in 2010, intended for integration into military forces, most notably the USMC and U.S. Army. The objective is to make lighter munitions, case-telescoped ammunition, incorporating electronics such as rounds counters and laser sights, etc., and is designed to replace light machine guns, such as the M249 and M240. This particular rifle was chosen to be in this story, because since it takes place in 2021, I figure especially by that point the U.S. military would have made them a well-distributed weapon within their infantries.


	14. Chapter XIII: If a Story Be a Confession

A/N: Same stuff applies as in the first chapter. Oh, and unfortunately I neither own _Supernatural_ nor _Dark Angel_. Just this.

A/N part two: This chapter is again devoid of conscious Dean, but don't worry—next one he'll be up and awake_…_for better or worse_…_heh.

A/N part three: Specific episodes of _Supernatural_ mentioned are: a line from "What Is and What Should Never Be." Specific episodes of _Dark Angel_ mentioned are: "Pollo Loco," "…And Jesus Brought a Casserole," "Designate This," "The Berrisford Agenda," and "Brainiac." There's also an homage to the _Psych_ Pilot episode.

* * *

**Of Desire and the Status Quo**

_**Chapter XIII: If a Story Be a Confession

* * *

**_

"So where'd you learn all that stuff?" Max asks, a mile or so after she and Alec had appropriated the Jeep.

"What stuff?" Alec replies, frowning at her.

Max takes her eyes off the road for a second to look over at Alec. "'What stuff'?" she mimics in disbelief. "Everything! The medicine, the pharmacology, the Dean saving…I know Manticore wouldn't teach things like serotonin overdose, given that they were brainwashing people who had a _lack_ of serotonin. So what gives?"

Alec heaves a sigh, and stares out the window that he'd closed once the infamous Washington sky decided to once more pour buckets over every bit of land and water it could find. There isn't much to see, even with Alec's ingrained night vision, but he leans his forehead against the cool glass anyway.

Upon hearing Alec's silence, Max's senses are on full alert. Alec loves to talk—the only times he doesn't are on missions where it's imperative he stays quiet (and even then, it's be a tossup as to whether he fulfills that or not), or if there's something _huge_ that's bothering him. Max unwillingly flashes back to that horrific set of days where she'd been left fully in the dark on the reasons behind Alec's sudden mood change from happy-go-lucky to pure confusion and desolation.

"This isn't another…another Ray—" Max stops mid-word, unable to bring herself to say the name of the woman Alec had given his heart to, the rule unspoken and yet paramount. Alec doesn't talk about it, Max doesn't ever mention it.

She brushes off most of what Alec does—same as he, a lot of the time—but there are some lines even Max won't cross, and Rachel is the one foremost. She'd previously thought of Alec as incapable of true affection and caring, that he couldn't possibly understand the emotions and the repercussions for people like the two of them that love caused. Max knows it well, and she hadn't expected Alec to know it to the same level. But once she'd learned it, and learned that Alec had been burned quite possibly even worse than she had, well, she isn't going to unbearably cruelly exploit that part of him.

"I mean, this isn't another Manticore thing, is it?" Max amends, tightening her fingers around the steering wheel in apprehension, though having a sickening feeling she already knows the answer.

Alec fiddles with the non-functioning radio dial, before he abandons that movement and instead crosses his arms over his chest. "'Course it was," he scoffs lowly, his eyes staring past the dark rain.

Max nods slowly, expecting as much but hating that she had. "So what happened?" she asks. "And don't even _think_ about doing your whole stonewalling thing with that 'I'm always all right' shit. Tell me what happened."

_Because it's not just about you anymore, Alec_, Max wants to add sadly, but settles for the harsher, more to-the-point approach, the type that defines her personality.

Alec's face is mutinous for a few seconds, like Max had asked him to slaughter a puppy or something—all right, she allows, maybe it's wrong to equate _Manticore_ to a _puppy_, but still—but then the tautness recedes, and he takes a deep breath.

"It was February of 2020, a few weeks after they decided I wasn't completely defective and not just bound for organ harvest," Alec says finally, and his voice already has that faraway quality that Max herself adopts when thinking of events she'd really rather not.

Max winces, Zack's face behind all that tubing and wires coming to her mind. It's soon overshadowed, however, by her remembering what Alec had told her months ago, at first an offhand mention, and now a crude vignette:

_I know that because'a him, I had to spend six months in Psy Ops. They wanted to make sure it wasn't genetic._

_You think life was rough when we were ten? A little schooling, little brainwashing, some maneuvers outside, you think that was tough? Well, take it from me, later on it got a whole lot worse. But you did what you had to do. And you tried to forget. And when you couldn't forget, they had ways of making you not care…_

A vision of Alec, strapped to a table—like Dean had been—helpless, dosed up on concoctions of drugs that did God knows what, a crimson laser piercing through his eye straight into his thalamus, relentlessly, causing all the pain and worse of physical injury, but leaving not a scratch. A vision of him faced off against multiple persons from the Psy Ops series, their extrasensory gifts prodding and mangling and falsifying his brain as they tried to make his memories, memories of Rachel and of a time when he was happy, vanish and in their place inject ones of pure Manticore, pure soldier, pure robotic allegiance.

Max had been morbidly curious about what she'd actually missed post-her escape, and perhaps she still is to a degree, but now that she's less I-hate-you-Alec-just-go-and-die, and more will-you-be-my-Second-in-Command?, sees just how twisted Manticore could make someone as equanimous and vivacious as Alec, well…she's not so inclined to know anymore.

"What happened?" Max prompts quietly, the only sounds able to permeate the tension being the torrential rain, and Dean's labored breathing.

"They sent me undercover again," Alec bites out, his jaw tight. "With the contingency, obviously, that I'd be watched more carefully than I was _before_. They flew me over to Manhattan, where I was supposed to pose as an intern in neurology at the Mount Sinai Hospital. The objective was to assassinate the Chief of Staff there; he was a really nice guy, actually, which was probably another Fuck You of Manticore's, and apparently he'd been looking into neural engineering, into what effects different snips or grafts to certain areas of the brain could cause, too much for Manticore's liking. Guess they thought killing the man would be a kind of test for me or whatever; if I could do it, kill in such cold, unnecessary blood like that then I really was successfully reindoctrinated."

Max pauses, thinking this over, before she questions, "And you did it?"

"What do you think?" Alec snaps angrily, whipping his head towards her.

Her jaw tenses, and its only when she feels the plastic of the steering wheel bend under the pressure of her clenched fingers that she gets her fury under control. But, unlike it probably would've only but three or four months ago, it isn't at Alec. She'd be the biggest hypocrite in the world if she held something Manticore made him do against him.

"You ended that man's life, Alec," Max says placatingly, "but you saved Dean's with the knowledge you got from that job. And in my book, that's a pretty damn good thing."

"Doesn't change the fact that I killed him."

"You've killed a lot of people, Alec. I've killed a lot of people. Dean's killed a lot of people. All of us have. And it sucks ass, and it hurts like hell, but it's happened," says Max firmly, shooting Alec a hard look. "No one can change that, and there's no point in trying to. All any of us can hope for is to try and make the best of it and do as much good with it as possible."

Alec is quiet, but this time Max doesn't press. She glances in the rearview mirror briefly, checking as well she can on Dean. He's still pale as nothing else, and there's the intermittent tremor going through him, and he's muttering a little under his breath, but Max is pretty sure he's not in immediate threat of death. That said, she edges the pedal a bit more to the floor, pushing the speedometer from eighty-five to a hundred, the whining engine and rain-soaked road merely catalysts.

* * *

Max, Alec, and Dean are only about a quarter of a mile away from Terminal City's gates when Max remembers that the military is still very much in play (hey, give her a break, she was a little preoccupied), their twenty-four/seven guard one of the main hindrances for making T.C. livable. Max pulls the Jeep over to the side of the road, shutting off the car and looking over at Alec, who had been more silent than Dean ever since he'd admitted to his murdering the neurologist.

"There's a sewer entrance not far from here," Max says, breaking the quietude. "Don't use it much 'cause it's too close for comfort to the barricade."

She feels the notification is thoroughly unnecessary, given that Alec's just as aware, if not more so, of the goings-on in T.C. as she is, but honestly, the silence is weirding her out. When Alec doesn't answer, she punches him in the arm.

"Hey!" Max barks sharply. Alec finally turns to her, his attention focused. "Think you can carry him through the tunnels? Or should we call Mole to send someone to help?"

Alec scowls. "It's Dean that's the cripple, not _me_, Max," he retorts agitatedly. "I can carry my clone just fine, thank you."

"He's not a clone."

"Whatever. Same difference."

"Let's just go already," Max orders, hopping out of the vehicle and grabbing the bundle of her sweater and Dean's clothes, which still bears the miraculously unbroken bottles of medicine inside of it. Coming around to Alec's side, she helps him safely get Dean out of the backseat, and although she's not happy about the fireman's carry Alec adopts again, she concedes that it's the most efficient way. Were Dean about sixty pounds lighter, she wagers Alec would go with just holding Dean over both arms, but as it is, Dean might as well be a sack of potatoes.

It's about one klick to the sewer entrance, and they make it there in a few minutes, but that isn't the part that's most difficult. Max heaves open the manhole cover and Alec sets Dean gently on the ground for a moment so that he can jump down into the sewer—a splash of _something_ echoing throughout—and Max can awkwardly pass Dean through the entrance and into Alec's hold again. Taking a last, quick survey of her surroundings to make sure no one saw them, Max then steps down into the tunnel, pulling the metal cover back over her.

Alec wastes no time in griping over anything and everything, soon making Max wonder why exactly she'd so wanted him to _start_ talking in the car ride. More unfortunate still, his blabbering is made twice as long due to that many more breaths he has to take owing to Dean's deadweight. Max thinks Alec's exaggerating, considering it's not like Dean's, say, Brain's size, but, to Alec's credit, Dean _was_ overdosed with a lethal level of narcotics, so there's that.

"You know, really, I still don't get this devotion you have to the guy," Alec continues, still on his favorite topic—Max and Dean. "I mean, he's basically me, and you don't like _me_ this much."

Max rolls her eyes. "Dean is _so_ not you, Alec," she says. "He's way more mature."

Alec snorts ungracefully, coming to a puddle of water-ish liquid and splashing some of it on Max, which really only serves to further her point. "Come on, you barely know the man," he whines, and Max can't truthfully deny that. "And is it not completely messed up that he looks barely thirty when he should be, what, forty-something? Not to _mention_ the rap sheet. Kinda careless, if you ask me."

"Didn't," Max retorts. "And yeah, it's really fucking whacked, but unless you've got something new to say, just shut up. I'll get answers, but it's not like anyone can give them besides Dean, now is it?"

"Wow, Logan can't magic his way into finding it out? My mind is sufficiently boggled," Alec says, putting his free hand over his heart to emphasize his words.

Max sneers at him, and would totally sweep her leg into his ankles and send him sprawling into the sludge if it weren't for the precious cargo he's in charge of. "Logan found out lots of stuff about Dean, for your information," Max says. "I mean, maybe not something—"

"Useful?" Alec interjects, to Max's glare.

"_No_," she snipes. "Maybe not something that explains the whole dopplegänger thing is all. You never know, maybe Dean's just…youthful for his age."

"That's total bullshit and you know it," Alec says matter-of-factly. "You just don't want to admit that neither you nor Logan have jack squat. Or that you're _dying_ to find out what's the deal with all of this."

Max purses her lips, really, _really_ wishing Alec weren't so intuitive. On missions, it helped. Times like now? Yeah, it so doesn't. "What do you want from me, Alec?"

"I want to know just why the hell a homicidal maniac Ordinary from over a decade ago is suddenly walking around with my face," Alec states, jerking Dean on his shoulder. "It's like freakin' 493 all over again, only without the schizophrenia crap."

"Don't say that," Max snaps. "Don't you talk about Ben like that."

"Max, lay off," Alec sighs, glancing sideways at her. "I'm just trying to work through this, same as you. It'll succeed a lot better if you don't keep sabotaging me with your heatseeker rhetoric every two seconds."

She hates when Alec does this, says something with just the right amount of ambiguity as to whether he's insulting you or complimenting you. Max just isn't sure. "Well, you just know everything, don't you?"

"Scary, isn't it?"

Max grits her teeth, repeating the furious mantra in her head that she can't kick Alec's ass. Yet. "All right, _fine_. What do you suggest, Your Omniscience?"

"I'd be so flattered if your voice wasn't _dripping_ with sarcasm," Alec remarks, grinning at her. Max death-glares at him, and it has zero effect on Alec after all this time and the countless ones she's bestowed on him, but he complies anyway. "Sam."

It's all Alec says, and Max waits for a few seconds, like she's expecting him to go on, but he doesn't. "Sam?" Max inquires, the younger brother coming up on the "What do we do now?" lists more and more often lately. That isn't to say Max knows anything more about Sam now than she did when Cindy gave the suggestion, but Max thinks she should maybe drop Sam's name first next time. It's been the number one answer so far. "Okay, what about him?"

"Come on, Maxie," Alec says, purposefully riling her up with the nickname that was Ben's for her. "If there's anyone that can provide answers for Dean, besides Dean himself, who's kinda crazy at this point—don't look at me like that, it's totally true—it'll be his brother, right?"

Alec's logic is sound, Max will give him that. There is just one problem, and the same one she'd encountered previously: "Yeah, and where do you propose we find him, huh? Who's to say the guy's even alive?"

"Already got Dix working on it," says Alec with a full grin. "I presume Sam'd be too careful to let himself get caught in a pattern of suspicious deaths or whatever by the feds, but I'm betting he'd never banked on a genetically engineered geek looking for him."

Max looks at him, considering. "All right, a) how'd you know to look for Sam, and b) what exactly did you ask Dix to search for? 'Brutal ritual killings by a potentially dead serial killer'?"

"Actually, yeah, basically," Alec replies with a straight face. Then, it turns uncomfortable, and he adjusts Dean on his shoulders again. "Right. That nightmare I had?"

Max frowns, Alec's writhing and purely terrified form in the throes of a horrific dream that she'd been simultaneously afraid and eager to wake him from all too vivid in her mind. "Of course," she responds instead, that episode being crucial to their locating of White's compound. "Was there something else about it?"

"Well, look, you said you and O.C. heard Dean muttering something about Sam, something about not hurting him," Alec says. "I figure if we actually bring him to Dean, maybe it'll fix him or at least make him talk. Or not. I dunno."

Once again, Max can't exactly find fault in Alec's theory, and yet it's still a daunting one. It isn't just the schematics of _finding _Sam that fills Max with misgivings. She has more than enough faith in her people and in technology that they'd be able to find Sam (eventually). No, what has her apprehensive about the whole thing would be how exactly she—and maybe Alec, although that'd probably screw it all up more—could convince Sam that she both isn't some creeper, and that she really does have Dean. Not to mention the necessity for Sam to be at least neutral on the whole transgenic front. If he weren't, well, Max doubts he'd even let her get one word out.

Alec sighs. "Oh, great," he bemoans. "You've got that _face_ again."

"What face?"

"The Alec's-nuts-but-I'm-just-going-to-ignore-him-and-his-awesome-plan face."

Max fixes him with another glare. "You know, for an X5, you're really co-dependent," Max observes. She notes the writing on the side of the next tunnel junction they come across and, knowing they're close to T.C., quickens her pace.

She mentally counts down from three before Alec's retort comes. "First of all, I'm not co-dependent," Alec snaps, right on schedule. "Secondly, with your fascist ruling, how can I not be insecure, you rightist, you?"

"_Fascist_?!"

"Yeah, you know, Ordinary evil dictator stuff," Alec supplies. "Slap a swastika and half-stache on you, and you're a regular Hitler. Albeit more attractive."

"The random knowledge you have is disturbing," Max comments, not very familiar herself with fascism or Hitler, seeing as how even the Ordinary educational system is pretty fucked up, and it isn't like Manticore exactly taught History. (If they had, Max has a feeling the transgenics would have related them to fascists anyway, so perhaps it'd been in Manticore's best interests after all.)

Alec shrugs, obviously not affected by Max's observation. In his experience, the more knowledge you have the better, regardless of its content. Case in point: Dean. Granted, Alec's not fond of just _how_ he acquired that information, but it proved useful nonetheless, even though beforehand Alec never would've thought it would be an asset. Unfortunately, in this instance, Alec has no insight (random or otherwise) on Sam, let alone on how to find him and bring him to Dean. All he has is that nightmare, which isn't really comprehensible in the first place.

"We'll try," Max says, and Alec turns to her, surprised. He's pretty positive he would've been able to get Max to come around, but he hadn't thought it'd be this fast. "I don't know how soon we'd be able to find any info, but we'll try."

"Um…good," Alec says stiltedly, wondering if he'd shown something on his face that Max interpreted to be so pathetic she had to agree with him. He doesn't think he did… "How's about we get him to T.C. first, though, huh? Dude's getting heavy."

Max rolls her eyes, she and Alec quickly falling back into their typical roles. "I think you should be glad he's knocked out," she says lightly. "It'd be much harder to get him through the tunnels and let Rade look him over if he were conscious, don't you think?"

"It'd be better if he weren't mortally injured _and_ he were complacent," Alec counters. "But when have we ever been that fortunate?"

"I'm continuously in awe of your abilities to lighten a situation," says Max dryly. Of course, her statement isn't always ironic, since Alec _does_ have a certain knack for lightening situations, but at the present time, she doesn't find his cynicism very helpful.

Alec looks like he's going to reply with something considerably perverted, but then catches the light at the end of the tunnel (literally), and sighs in relief. "_Finally_," he remarks, and steps up his pace. "It's really too bad Manticore had to funnel all that money into making us, when they should've been making some kind of teleportation device."

Max stares at him strangely, but decides to play along. "Yeah, 'cause even if they had, they totally would have given one to us, right?"

"Dream killer."

Rolling her eyes, Max jogs ahead to get the sentry guarding this particular door into T.C. to take five; she hasn't yet figured out how she'll break the news about Dean to the rest of the transgenics (well, Plan A is simply not to tell them, but she's in the process of coming up with Plans B through H just in the strong likelihood that Plan A won't work out), so for now she'll just go for the escape and evade tactic.

But being a leader of people has its benefits, and although the sentry eyes Max weirdly, he clears off, and Alec arrives right on cue, muscles straining as he again adjusts Dean on his shoulder. "Where do you recommend we stash him?" Alec asks impatiently.

"Um…" Max hadn't quite thought that far ahead yet. She supposes she should have at least during their trip from White's to T.C., but she'd been distracted with Alec's story, and with Dean, and she'd initially envisioned Dean up and walking, which it turned out he isn't. That said, it doesn't take long to come up with a solution. "Try one of the recovery rooms in the back. I doubt they're being used, and you know Rade doesn't allow anyone to just hang out in there or whatever. Dean should be safe enough until we can find another arrangement."

"Who's to say Rade won't flip when she notices a room's occupied with, you know, a dude nearly identical to me?" Alec opposes, greatly uncomfortable with how Dean is pressing right on his clavicle.

Max purses her lips, irritated that Alec just has to poke holes in everything. "Just—would you just go with me on this?" she snaps. "Or come up with a different option. Either way, do it fast."

After a few moments of rapid thinking, Alec has to confess she's right. There's really no other feasible place to put Dean, not without more than a couple people noticing. "All right, fine," he agrees reluctantly, starting to walk in the direction of the medical bay.

Max is grateful that there isn't anyone milling around in the wing, that no one had managed to injure themselves badly enough for Rade to look them over, and she throws open the door of the first recovery room (the label pretty sizably exaggerates the actual furnishing and materials of the room, but the intent's there). Since Rade is on the verge of OCD in terms of keeping her surroundings clean—a useful attribute, given that being as excellent a medic as she's capable, bearing in mind the circumstances, is her drive—the room is spotless. The fairly threadbare sheets are pulled tight around the pathetic mattress, the floors are dust-free, and there's a tray of clean bandages and antiseptic on a small metal end table next to the bed.

It's not remotely up to medical par, but it's the best T.C. can do, and it's certainly good enough for Alec, who's more than happy to be released of his quarry, setting Dean down on the bed with less grace than Max would like. He immediately commences rolling and massaging his shoulder, and instead of giving him flack for being a baby about it, Max sets Dean's clothes in a pile by the door then goes over to straighten him out on the bed, and wishes there were more she could do.

But Alec had said there isn't, so with a last pitying glance at Dean, she and Alec step out of the room, Max already going through what the best future course of action is, Alec beelining to T.C.'s limited supply of hard liquor. Transgenics can't get drunk, but by hell, Alec's going to try. He thinks he deserves it.


	15. Chapter XIV: The Shatterer of Worlds

A/N: Same stuff applies as in the first chapter. Oh, and unfortunately I neither own _Supernatural_ nor _Dark Angel_. Just this.

A/N part two: Happy Christmas Eve, and merry Christmas tomorrow! And I believe Kwanzaa starts December 26, so happy that, too. (Again, for all who celebrate it, that is.) I know I'm missing some holidays for people, so for you guys, the Christmas-ers, and the Kwanzaa-ers, hope everything goes wonderfully, and you don't get too annoyed with family over!

A/N part three: Hey look, Dean's awake! Also: due to increased queries about Sam, here's the answer: yes, he will appear, but it won't be for a long while. Sorry—what can I say, the little twerp's pretty good at hiding. =)

A/N part four: Specific episodes of _Supernatural_ mentioned are: "Tall Tales"/"Bloodlust." Specific episodes of _Dark Angel_ mentioned are: "Pollo Loco."

* * *

**Of Desire and the Status Quo**

_**Chapter XIV: The Shatterer of Worlds

* * *

**_

When his senses come back to relative working order, Dean opens his eyes with a snap, ignoring the dregs of sleep sticking to him. He's in an unknown room, but the weirder part is that it looks like one that might be found in a hospital. Not the sterile creepiness of one, like before, but one that had a barely-mattressed, tiny bed, a lamp, a few bandages on a table next to him, and not much else.

_What the hell…?_

Dean sits up in the bed, knowing he probably shouldn't, but Dean's never been a man of passivity or doing what he's told, so he ignores the pounding headache, throbbing jaw, and bruised chest as he starts taking stock of his current condition and environment. Thankfully, whoever had brought him here (wherever _here_ is), had left him in the scrubs from before and didn't redress him into ones less…covering.

He looks around quickly and finds his actual clothes in a pile by the door and quickly pulls them on, the fabric of his tee shirt and jeans rough from years of using cheap detergent and the comfortable, heavy boots sliding over his feet a small but familiar reassurance in his thoroughly _un_familiar surroundings.

The unfortunate thing that he finds out next is that the one window in the place is locked. Not as in Dean can easily pick it, but as in there are steel bars over the glass, teasing him because they're the only simple exit he can see.

But when has Dean's life ever been simple? He's usually always been able to get out of worse scrapes than this. There's a door off to his left, and Dean makes his way over, pressing his arm over his chest gingerly, feeling like it's been shot or stabbed or something, and he's not feeling very pleased about the whole thing.

Cautiously, Dean peers through the window on the door, to find out that it's a short hallway, with an opening to a large room at the end. There isn't anyone in said hallway at the moment, though, and Dean takes the opportunity. Hauling open the oddly heavy door, he slips out into the corridor, shivering a little at the cold temperature against his chilled skin.

There aren't very many places to hide behind, and Dean does his best to just be as quiet as he can. For the most part, he's able, until he glances over to his left to see if there's anyone over there, and then back center only to discover that there is no longer empty air, but rather he's faced with a man who looks like he should be in the "Reptilian Encounters" section of _Weekly World News._ Either that or he's some supernatural son of a bitch that Dean should shoot. _Where _is_ his sawed-off anyway?_

"Sleeping Beauty's awake," says the lizard-man around a half-smoked cigar. The man speaks over his shoulder to someone out of Dean's perspective, calling, "Hey, Fearless Leader, clone's up."

Dean doesn't know who this Fearless Leader person is, but he's not going to take chances. Summoning his admittedly below-par strength, Dean lands a well-placed kick to the lizard-man's abdomen, following it up with an uppercut that, with the vast majority of Dean's previous opponents, would have knocked them on their ass.

This time, however, the lizard-man just ends up being pushed back a step or two and looks monumentally pissed off. Dean gets the annoyed feeling that it's more to do with his cigar punched to the ground and not Dean's hits. He brings his fist back again to aim at the man's face, but, from a combination of the man's increased strength and Dean's decreased, his hand catches Dean's easily and wrenches it behind Dean's back.

"You really are just like pretty boy," says the lizard-man. "Fightin' even though you're bleeding and weak as a damn kitten."

"Let go of me, you slimy son of a—"

"Mole!" commands a voice that Dean is, for once, relatively glad to hear. "Mole, for God's sake, let him go!"

The lizard-man, evidently known as Mole, grunts, but does do as Max demanded. Immediately, Dean takes a step away and tries not to groan at the aching in his chest. He puts his fingers to the wound, and his ribs bend in protest. _Perfect. Just awesome._

"Dean, calm down," Max says, a mix of frustration and relief in her eyes. "You're in no shape to go picking a fight with Mole here. And _Mole_," Max goes on, her attention on the transhuman, "you can't just try and kill someone we just patched up from injuries he almost died from. Jesus."

"You tell me I can kick Alec's ass whenever I want," Mole counters, "I figure a clone'a his is fair game."

"He's not a _clone_, Mole, he's human!"

"Touch me again, I'll kill you," Dean threatens, attempting to not favor his arm for purposes of not showing he's hurting all over. "I swear."

"Promises, promises," says Mole, taking another cigar from his pocket, lighting it, then turning to walk away from Dean.

Dean is starting to see red, feel his temper boil, feel the heat rising from his skin. He knows in some back part of his mind that he's being irrational about this, but he is just _done_ with nothing going his way, with him being tossed around like a chew toy, helpless as a baby against…whatever these things are. Dean likes to think he's a pretty levelheaded guy for the most part, but sometimes, his anger gets the best of him, and he lashes out. Which seems to be his tendency of the day.

Taking advantage of Max's concern towards him, he whirls around and pins her up against the wall, his body close enough to hers to where she wouldn't be able to get much leverage. He'd twisted her arms back far enough that he knows her shoulder joints are close to being separated from their sockets, and his forearm is like an iron bar against her sensitive throat, a hair's breadth away from crushing her trachea.

Max, like Dean had intended, was caught by surprise. She kept underestimating Dean's training—so far, she hasn't seen anything to suggest it doesn't incorporate much of Manticore's moves, to be honest—and his fortitude, his hatred to be considered the underling. Max also knows very well that she can overpower just about any Ordinary unless she's heavily injured, sedated, et cetera, and at the moment, she's perfectly healthy. The _problem_ is that she can't seem to get the advantage in Dean's hold. Most people would stand a little too far away from their adversary, their arm not quite tight against the other's throat, the unwillingness to slowly pop out the person's joints.

Dean isn't. He's using on Max just what she'd been taught; only, Dean's had much more training in this Manticorean-type of fighting than Max has, and while she's extremely talented even among transgenics, let alone having the dirty, street-style fighting, she's never really gone officially up against these kind of moves. She'd fought Alec before, but she always had the feeling he never quite put all he had into opposing her, like it was all a game to him. Apart from that, she'd never had the opportunity to fight another X, to experience their fighting styles, since now she was considered leader of the transgenic nation, and no one exactly _wanted_ to throw down with her. (Not to mention they had more on their plates than playful tussles.)

She won't say she's _screwed_ precisely, especially since she's in a city full of genetically engineered super-soldiers who would come to her aid at any time, but for some reason, she doesn't want them to save her, at least not right away. The look in Dean's green eyes is feral, deadly, and sharp, even though there is a certain amount of panic in them as well. Dean's an Ordinary, but…if _Max_ underestimated him, the other transgenics, in particular those who had a massive grudge or prejudice towards Ordinaries, _definitely_ would. Dean wouldn't get out of Terminal City alive if the transgenics didn't allow it, but she has no illusions he wouldn't at least intend to harm a good amount of them to try.

"Dean, please," Max chokes, Dean's arm closing off half her windpipe. "J-Just let me explain."

"Why?" Dean spits, expression edging towards manic. "So you can push me around like a fucking chess piece some more, stare at me like I'm Charles fucking Manson? I'm not your _play toy_, Max!"

In the next moment, Max can suddenly breathe free oxygen again, and she coughs and splutters at the abrupt influx of air. Dean is thrown away from her, and slams into the railing that surrounds the main computer terminals with an echoing _crunch_ before sliding down to slump against the concrete. There's a wide smear of red on the metal rails, a few stray pieces of rebar, and spatters on the ground from where he'd been pulled off.

Max looks up from Dean, to see Alec standing there, furious. His knuckles are bloody and torn, and Max realizes that he'd been the one to intervene. He starts moving menacingly towards Dean's alive but damaged form—he's trying valiantly to get up again, but Max thinks he might have a concussion or broken something—with the intention, no doubt, to kill, or at least maim.

Max blurs to stand in front of Alec, her hands unyielding against his chest. "Alec, _no_," she hisses, begging him with her eyes to stand down from Dean.

Satisfied for the moment that Alec's not going to go primitive, she turns back to Dean and kneels down. He's staring up at Alec, eyes wide and disbelieving. Max thinks that this is worse for Dean, not only because he had never actually seen Alec before, but because he's looking at someone who is an exact replica of himself about a decade ago. Whereas Alec hadn't known what he would look like in the future.

The disbelief in Dean's eyes quickly changes, though, to hatred, and Max puts the pieces together too late. Heedless of his injuries, Dean reaches into his jeans pocket—_why did we have to leave his clothes there? _Max thinks desperately—and, in a flurry of motion, whips out his switchblade and hurls it through the air. The blade lands squarely in Alec's thigh, wedging itself through the denim and into his flesh. Alec curses up a blue streak before yanking the knife out and throwing it to the ground, pissed. Everyone in the room except Dean knows it's more or less a surface wound to an X5, but no one _likes_ getting stabbed.

Dean's expression turns again, this time from hatred to pure confusion. Max has long since given up on trying to decipher the guy. "But…that blade is silver," Dean says, staring from the dripping knife on the ground and then to Alec, who is wrapping a piece of cloth tightly around his wound. "You're…you're supposed to die."

"_No_, I'm _not_," Alec seethes, glaring at his double. "What is your _glitch_, dude?"

"Dean, what are you talking about?" Max asks quietly. Dean's statement would have been normal enough, had it not been for his unnecessary mentioning of the blade's metal. "What does it matter if your knife's silver?"

"'Cause he's a damn shapeshifter!" Dean growls. "I just don't know how he's still standing. Silver kills you fuckers!"

Max feels a shiver run down her spine, as well as the collective, half-puzzled, half-suspicious slow in conversation in the room. Dean's voice had been directed solely on Alec, but his deep tones reverberated throughout the command center. Transgenics were programmed to be able to deal with unfamiliar and strange circumstances, but not one of the transgenics was taught what to do if an adversary—for that's what Dean is to them—starts accusing one of their leaders of being a mythical creature.

"Max?" Alec asks her, his tone level enough, but with a hint of apprehension. "Care to share with the class what the hell this guy's talking about?"

"I—" What do they all expect her to say? _She_ doesn't have any idea. Dean had vanished from Cindy's apartment before they'd had a chance to talk to him, and then after getting him away from White, he'd passed out. Max knows as much as anyone else does about Dean Winchester. "Alec, I don't know."

"Well, figure it out before he goes all psycho again!"

Max flinches at Alec's words, not because she doesn't think Dean deserves it so much as because Alec's "psycho" comment brought things just way too close to that ultra-sensitive nerve that is Ben. Normally, she probably wouldn't have done much beyond a glare, but…this is different. Ben feels like a third presence in the room, three lookalikes all oppressing the atmosphere at the same time.

Alec she knows is just as sane as the rest of the transgenics, but she can't lie and say at the present moment Dean doesn't remind her of when Ben was so sure he was right and believing in the Blue Lady that he was willing to kill for "Her." She's confident that Dean's got a relatively sound head on his shoulders, but sometimes he lets out this purely animalistic side that she doesn't know what to do with. That makes her think maybe he really _is_ the Dean Winchester that induced fear in a hell of a lot of people thirteen years ago.

Max leans closer to Dean, ignoring the way her instincts are positively _screaming_ at her to get away. Dean is like a cornered animal right now, injured, in pain, threatened, and disoriented, and, transgenic or no, he could snap Max's neck like a twig if he were so inclined. His left shoulder is glaringly offset and bloody, not his legs or anger.

"Dean, listen," she says entreatingly, blocking out everyone except Dean, blocking out even the possible traces she might have before glimpsed of Alec or Ben in his face. Just focuses on _Dean_, on how she could reach him. The caveat, of course, is that she doesn't know him. At all. "Dean, Alec isn't a…a shapeshifter. He's just like me, and everyone else here. We're human, Dean. Just a little different."

Dean's lips curl, his teeth glinting in the fluorescents. "_Freaks_. _Monsters,_" Dean grins, the smile slightly bloody from where he must have bit down upon hitting the wall. "You all deserve to go to Hell. I'll send every last one of you back there!"

Sounds of fury and disgust rage throughout the room, in various forms of animalistic noises, at Dean's words. Max doesn't dare to look around in case of what she knows she'll see. She feels the sting of Dean's barb in her gut, and she had been a second from pummeling him herself—they aren't monsters, they _aren't_—but then she catches where his line of sight is going.

Rather, where it _isn't_.

Dean's not looking at Max, he's not looking at Alec, he's not looking at anyone. Well, okay, he's _looking_, but eerily like that first day Max had met him, Dean is so clearly envisioning something _else_. Max isn't sure when his mind altered his perception, but the _when_ isn't important now. What she needs now is to get Dean the hell out of the command center as soon as she can, and also find out what could have possibly happened in his past that would cause such monumental breaks from reality.

Max turns around to face Alec, her body tense. "Help me move him," she orders in a tone that leaves no room for negotiation.

"Did you just _hear_—"

"_Alec_," Max intones, her temper flaring. "_Now_. There's something wrong with him, something he's seeing instead of seeing us, and I need to get him out of here before our people decide to tear him limb from limb."

"No shit there's something wrong with him!" Alec protests, gesturing at his double. "He's saying I'm a fucking _shapeshifter_, Max! They aren't _real_."

Max has had enough. Slowly and menacingly like the predator she was made to be, she stands up and walks over to Alec, stopping just inches from his face. "You help me move Dean _now_, or so help me I'll send _your_ ass to White, no return address. Got it?"

A low rumble sounds somewhere deep in Alec's throat that Max has never heard before, but she hasn't gotten where she is by backing down. She doesn't blink as she stares into Alec's dark eyes, hitting them with a pleading desperation. She can't handle _two_ feral, expertly trained, alpha-geared males, both with substantial weight and height on her, one pissed and annoyed, the other currently hallucinating and maybe in the throes of psychosis. She's good, but she's not _that_ good. It doesn't help that she knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that all of T.C. would take Alec's side over Dean's if it came down to that. God help her but she wants to save Dean, and his odds aren't favorable at the moment.

Alec's mouth is twitching in a snarl, the air around him bristled, but after a few, very tense seconds, his coiled muscles unwind a bit, and Max exhales the breath she didn't know she'd been holding. "You'd better be right about this one," Alec says flatly.

Max nods, acknowledging to the both of them the threat Alec unmistakably placed in his words. She has a feeling Alec would hold it up if he felt so inclined. This time when she walks towards Dean, she hears Alec's heavier footfalls behind her.

Bending down, she holds out her hand to Dean, trying to make it not shake. "Dean, come on," Max says imploringly. "We're just gonna move you to a different room."

Dean's eyes snap to hers, but they've still got that blank depth to them. "Where?"

"Somewhere safer, Dean," Max answers.

She realizes instantly that it was the wrong answer. At her response, Dean is in motion, but not in the fluid, quick movements as he'd done to subdue her earlier. Short fingernails grip onto the tile to try and gain purchase while Dean scrambles as hastily as he can backwards from Max, his breathing escalating. He soon runs out of room, though, and his head smacks against the rough concrete, signaling this time he's been _literally _backed into a corner. Dean's left hand reaches up to grab the railing, but he had either forgotten or hadn't before noticed his shoulder, and it forces him back to the ground.

"N-No…" Dean whispers. "Please don't take me—"

Max freezes, and she feels Alec behind her do the same. A minute ago, Dean was full venom and loathing, but now, his fear has transformed him into looking all of five years old. His face has lost the tightness that it's had ever since Max has seen him, and his eyes are glassy with terror. He's still futilely attempting to back away from Max, but there's physically no space to do so.

"Please," Dean begs again. "Stop, just stop, just _stop_. No—you can't take Sammy, you can't. Just…wait, _wait_! Take _me_. Not Sammy, _not Sammy_."

Max somehow manages to rip her gaze away from Dean in order to look at Alec. His lips are slightly parted, his forehead drawn into a confused frown, and his eyes intense in that way Max had come to associate with him trying to solve a singularly difficult equation. She wants to tell him it's useless to try to solve Dean; she's already gone through it, and none of her computations ever add up.

There is one thing, though, that's perfectly clear in Dean's pleading, and Max knows Alec gets it, too. That there's only one "Sammy" to whom Dean could be referring, and there's a basal factor in Dean's voice when he speaks of Sam, a factor that's ingrained in every older sibling. The desire to protect them no matter what the cost, desire to sacrifice yourself for them in any way you can, no matter how bad the outcome may end up for you.

Max still isn't anywhere near set straight on Dean's history, but even if she goes by the federal one, even if she goes by the implication that Dean's a cold-blooded murderer, there's a fact she can't ignore, and Dean's just sealed it. He's an older brother, killer or no, and his voice is begging Max—no, not Max, whoever it is he's seeing—to leave Sam alone, to do God knows what to Dean himself instead. And that's the exact kind of loyalty and devotion Max and her brothers and sisters instilled in themselves from the minute they were put in a unit together.

She'll figure out what to do with the hallucinating felon in front of her later.

Right now, she's going to save Sam Winchester's big brother.


	16. Chapter XV: Nothing Weighs on Us

A/N: Same stuff applies as in the first chapter. Oh, and unfortunately I neither own _Supernatural _nor _Dark Angel_. Just this.

A/N part two: Happy New Year's Eve, and New Year's Day tomorrow! Try _not_ to be like me and only keep up the resolutions for a week before caving. =)

A/N part three: Specific episodes of _Supernatural_ mentioned are: none. Specific episodes of _Dark Angel_ mentioned are: "Pollo Loco," "Designate This," "Two," and kind of "Harbor Lights" and "The Berrisford Agenda."

* * *

**Of Desire and the Status Quo**

_**Chapter XV: Nothing Weighs on Us So Heavily as a Secret

* * *

**_

Max nods at Alec, and they both step slowly closer to Dean, already getting a bad feeling about moving him. He's still mumbling under his breath, the words too close together for Max to understand, but she's got a good idea what they revolve around. In tandem, Max and Alec reach down to grasp Dean by the arms to help him up, but they hadn't quite realized the depth of his fear.

The second they touch Dean, he lashes out, slamming the heel of his hand straight into Alec's nose—"Fuck! Son of a _bitch_!" Alec yells thickly through cascading blood—and kicks Max in the stomach with his leg. She grunts as the wind is effectively knocked out of her; heavy-duty work boots in an unprepared abdomen do not a pleasant sensation make. Especially when Dean's already done it in the same spot once before.

Dean's eyes are still wild, but it's plain to see that any motion remotely close to him would result in getting hit, kicked, punched, or somewhere in between. Max sighs, unwillingly thinking that they might have to sedate him.

A movement to her left catches her eye, and she looks over to see Joshua shuffling towards her, his shoulders a little slumped, and Max recognizes it as a mix of despondency and the desire to help.

"Joshua help Sad Fella?" he asks earnestly, glancing down at Dean's form. Max is surprised that Joshua was able to tell that Dean isn't Alec, considering as far as Max knows, Joshua wasn't ever around to see they were two different people, and also that he genuinely wants to assist Dean, even though Dean had technically insulted everyone, including him. (Also a little amusement that Joshua has already come up with a nickname for Dean, albeit hoping that particular nickname won't stick forever.)

She appreciates Joshua's good intentions, but she also doesn't want him to get hurt, and although he's strong, she's afraid Dean'll get a few good hits in, and she'd never forgive herself if that happened.

"I don't think you can help Dean right now, Josh," she says placatingly, putting a hand on Joshua's arm. "He's…he doesn't really know what's going on."

The dog-man shakes his head in protest. "Joshua help," he insists. "Sad Fella confused, scared. Doesn't know who is friend. Sad Fella like Isaac."

Max starts to speak, and then pauses. She wouldn't say Dean is exactly like Isaac—as far as she knows, Dean has never cut tongues out of people's mouths—but she can see where Joshua would make the connection. Joshua never really saw Isaac as particularly dangerous, just confused, and at least what he said about Dean is true, to an extent.

"Sad Fella not hurt Joshua," the dog-man continues confidently.

"Max, might 's well give it a shot," Alec interrupts viscidly before Max can protest. Someone had given him a towel to hold up to his nose, which had already started to bruise and is most likely broken. (Max is a little impressed that Alec's still able to keep mostly a level head even though his day has _really_ gone to crap during the last few minutes.) "Maybe Dean likes dogs or something."

Max snorts. "Yeah? He'll probably say Joshua's a werewolf," she snaps, given that Dean had called Alec a _shapeshifter_. Letting out a strained breath, she looks around the room for Terminal City's appointed medic. "Rade, you got any of those sedatives left?"

The medic, a shapely, auburn-haired X5 who doesn't take shit from anyone, least of all Max or Alec, scoffs. "Max, all we bother to store are horse tranquilizers. This guy's an Ordinary—you want to eighty-six him, by all means, I'll go get them."

Max supposes she should have known this. After all, with the combination of a transgenic's metabolism and their generally sturdier systems, high doses of ketamine were required for sedation (not that they have to do so often, mind you), doses that are reserved for large animals, commonly horses. Ketamine is also used for human medicine, but at much smaller levels, and if Dean were given it with the saturation that T.C. had, well, if he didn't die, he'd at least be in a hell of a lot of trouble, quite possibly worse than he was at White's.

It did make sense, though, since Ordinaries weren't a common occurrence in the transgenic city. Really, the only person that showed up was Logan, and once Cindy, and Max had never figured they'd be around enough or in enough danger to warrant keeping a supply of human tranquilizers. And it isn't like Max can just put a sleeper hold on Dean. Not if she wants to keep her arms intact, anyway.

So, against her much better wishes, she nods. "All right, Joshua," she concedes finally. "Just…be careful."

She watches cautiously as he approaches Dean, regretting her decision the whole time. Dean looks Joshua up and down, still breathing heavily. "No…" he whispers, fingernails still digging into the floor.

"Joshua not hurt Sad Fella," Joshua says, his brown eyes, if possible, even more innocent and sincere than usual. "Joshua help Sad Fella."

"Sammy…" Dean murmurs, his body shaking.

"Not hurt Sammy," Joshua assures, even though Max knows Joshua doesn't know who Sam is, or what either brother was condemned of. Maybe, she ponders, it's better that way. "Sammy safe. Joshua not hurt Sad Fella, not hurt Sammy."

Dean bites his lip, still frightened and staring at Joshua like he's one of the "monsters" he'd been yelling about before. ("Monsters" that Max thinks, after Dean's shapeshifter comment, aren't applying to the transgenics, to whom the term usually is attributed. Not that she knows what Dean's "monsters" are.)

When Dean doesn't move, just keeps looking at Joshua, the dog-man decides he must have assured Dean that at least Sam wouldn't be hurt, though Max doubts Dean is of the opinion that _he_ won't be hurt.

Remarkably not intimidated—or maybe just still with his mantra of Dean not being dangerous, only confused—Joshua steps forward and lifts Dean up effortlessly, one hand on Dean's right shoulder blade, the other underneath his thighs, to where there isn't any pressure on Dean's misaligned shoulder, although there is still blood dripping from his back. Max and Alec look at each other, the both of them surprised at how easily Joshua was able to convince Dean, and also somewhat miffed that they'd escaped with bruises and blood, while Joshua wasn't harmed in the least.

"Where Joshua put Sad Fella?" Joshua asks, carrying Dean who has by this time shut his eyes, his whole face in an expression of being assured—perceiving—there would be immense pain in the near future.

"Um…just—you can put him on the couch in my office," Max determines, thinking that if _she_ were scared out of her wits and thought she was going to be tortured, the last place she'd want to be would be a hospital.

"Your office?" Alec hisses. He'd taken the towel off of his face, but blood is still streaked underneath it, and Max can see his usually straight and unblemished nose is off-angled, the bone cleanly but harshly severed. Max has to hand it to Dean—he knows how to break a bone.

Max ignores Alec and speaks to Joshua again. "Go ahead, Josh," she assures. "I'll be there in a second." Then she turns to Alec, and sternly orders, "_You_ go to Rade and get her to fix you up. Your broken nose is aesthetic, your slashed muscle isn't. _Now_."

Alec appears like he's going to protest, but he's been favoring his leg—for good reason—ever since Dean threw the knife in it, and truthfully, it hurts like fuck. Plus, Alec's pretty sure a piece of his jeans got sliced off and stuck in the wound, and it would be even less fun to have his advanced healing end up sealing in the denim, forcing him to have to reopen the wound to dig it out. Fine. But he's keeping Dean's sweet knife.

He's heading off to where Rade is rolling her eyes but already prepping her tools when Max's voice stops him again. "Alec." she sighs impatiently. "Give it back."

Without looking at her, Alec huffs, but tosses the open blade at Max—like he's going to close it when it's covered in blood? Come on, now—and even though she was expecting him to just hand it to her, her quick reflexes came into play and she caught it a few inches before it wedged into her arm.

"Alec!" she yelled angrily. He'd almost _killed_ her. Okay, maybe not, she concedes, but close enough. Not that he's listening. Giving up, Max addresses the sizable amount of transgenics who had been watching the entire spectacle with Dean. "Listen up, all of you," she says firmly. "Dean—the guy Josh just left with—isn't quite right at the moment, and he doesn't know what we are, or that we're just trying to live our lives. Pretty messed up situation we got going on, but under no circumstances are you to harm him. If there's a problem concerning Terminal City, talk to Alec until I get back. Understand?"

Half-hearted assent reaches Max's ears at her command, which is going to have to be enough. The situation is volatile as it is, and Max doesn't want to piss anyone off more than she has to. With that, she heads down the hallway Joshua had recently taken Dean, leaving the residents of T.C. to wonder what the hell just happened.

* * *

Max enters her office quietly, cautiously. Joshua had placed Dean where she prescribed, and Dean's sitting on the cushions with his knees drawn up to his chest, right arm wrapped around them, left hanging off-kilter, as he stares into nothing. Joshua's standing a few yards away from Dean, looking nervous and unsure, even though he'd been the only one to get Dean to not kick his ass nine ways from Sunday.

"Hey, Big Fella," Max says to Joshua, coming to sit on the edge of her desk, in between the two men. "How's it going?"

"Joshua okay," he replies. Then, pointing to Dean, he says regrettably, "Very sad. Want his Sammy."

"Do you know what's wrong?" Max asks, thinking that if anyone would have a glimmer of insight into Dean's ADMAX-like brain, it'd be Joshua.

Joshua shakes his head. "Sad Fella not want to talk," he relays.

Max figured as much. She studies his dislocated shoulder worriedly. She really wants it to get looked at—Alec was none too gentle in chucking Dean into the railing—but Rade is the best doctor they have, and she doesn't need her in jeopardy. She guesses she can send someone out for human sedatives, or at least call Logan or Cindy, but the military's still stationed outside T.C., and although they have the sewers, she'd be dispatching someone into imminent danger, and she doesn't want it on her head if someone dies. She's stuck in between a rock and a hard place, and she hates it.

"Think he'll pay attention to anything I say?" Max queries.

"Don't know," he says, putting a hand on Max's shoulder. "But Max try. Maybe Sad Fella listen."

Max gives Joshua a small smile. "Thanks, Joshua," she replies, wishing her upcoming task would be as easy as getting Alec to talk, but _of course_ her luck would make Alec's lookalike be the strong, silent type. She can only imagine what O.C. would say about _that_ observation. _Heathcliff my ass_, Max muses faintly.

"Find Alec?" Joshua inquires, reasoning that if things get hairy, Max might need a second transgenic there, just in case.

"No," Max negates. "I think that would make it worse." And she does. At least Dean kind of knows Max; he doesn't know Alec, and, hell, he'd accused the guy of being a mythical creature. Not to mention Max is dubious that Alec would even _want_ to be in the room. "I'll be okay, Josh, honestly."

Joshua nods hesitantly, but he trusts Max's intuitions, and she's not steered him wrong yet, so he leaves her alone with the guy who'd attacked her and Alec, who'd shouted that they were all monsters, and hopes both Max and Dean come out okay. He shuts the door behind him and goes to see Alec, who he knows would either be looking to kick Dean's ass or milk his injuries for all they're worth just so he can get some tail. Either one has equal potential, it's hard to tell with Alec. Or, on second thought, maybe both.

* * *

"You're a moron," says Rade, reaching behind her to get some tweezers. "What, you didn't think to check if he had a blade on him? Kind of a rookie mistake, Alec."

Alec hisses as Rade digs in the metal instrument to pull out the piece of denim in his thigh. "And you're a butcher," he whines, watching her thread string through a needle. "And no, I didn't. Sorry if I didn't think a totally out of it, bleeding, unusable shouldered Ordinary would be packing."

Rade scoffs. "He's your clone, isn't he?" she asks rhetorically. Alec is about to protest, but she continues. "Like _you_ wouldn't be packing even if you were wounded."

"That's different," Alec replies, refusing to wince as Rade begins to stitch up the elaborate slash in his leg. "Manticore practically _made_ with a knife or gun attached right to our skin. Plus, the guy's a civilian. What kind of human tries to pick a fight in a room full of transgenics?"

Finished with her ministrations on his leg, Rade reaches up and, without warning, puts both hands on either side of Alec's nose and pushes them together, snapping the bone back in place. Alec swears, more against the unawareness he had that she was going to fix it so crudely (if expertly, he adds with reluctance).

"Well," Rade ponders aloud, unable to resist taking a jibe at Alec, "seems like the guy's not really a regular civilian, right? Grapevine is, he's half of that criminal tag-team a while ago."

"Yeah, yeah, don't remind me," says Alec, still bitter and unsure ever since he'd found out Dean's crimes. He still has a certain amount of respect for the brothers' ability to escape the law, but that doesn't mean he wants Dean's felonies attached to that.

Rade shakes her head, taking in the brooding X5. He does it well, the pouty lips and bedroom eyes thing, but she knows that ninety percent of the time, it's all an act, he doesn't _really_ have many legitimate reasons to sulk so much. Sure, Alec is co-leader of their "freak nation" and haunted by Manticore (something else, too, but no one knows what), but so are the rest of them. She supposes maybe Alec should be able to mope about this Dean person, but really, the expression doesn't suit him.

"My heart bleeds for you," she deadpans, and then tosses a roll of gauze at him. "Wrap this around your leg if it starts gushing again, and ice your nose if you're that sensitive to it."

Alec smirks. Now _that_, Rade muses stoically, is a perfect fit for him. "Love you, too, sweetheart," he says sardonically, leering at her.

"Get _out_, Alec," she orders, giving him a gentle shove towards the exit. She notices that he's limping, but that's to be expected, and she doubts it'll be in effect past tomorrow evening. Well, unless Alec decides to fake the injury's severity, which Rade wouldn't put past him. She sighs scornfully, infuriated with herself for ever coming into contact with X5-494.

* * *

Max has never been much for the sharing and caring, but she's of the mind that she's pretty good at getting people to tell _her_ things, whether out of necessity, intimidation, or just plain making them angry enough to where they end up spilling whatever it is. But as she looks at Dean, she has a looming suspicion that none of those tactics would work on him.

For one, she'd never quite tried to get something out of someone whose mind was on the brink (save for Ben, and look how _that_ turned out), and for two, she doesn't have any leverage or prior knowledge to tempt, taunt, or threaten Dean with. All she's got is a federal file, and in her experience, those are more often than not either concealing something or totally off base with it. She knows, she _knows_ that there's way more to Dean's story than she's been informed, but unfortunately, there's no one who can really set the record straight. At least no one within reasonable distance or accessibility.

She could hunt down Sam, she opines, but there would be too many roadblocks with that method to make it worthwhile. Not only was Sam a master at deception and hiding, but Max doesn't even know if he's _alive_, let alone what city he'd be in, and, if Sam _is_ alive, since Dean didn't seem to be actively—or, to be precise, successfully—searching for his brother by the time Cindy'd found him, Max doubts Dean and Sam have seen each other in a while. Additionally, who's to say Sam would even believe that Max knows Dean, and _on top of that_, Sam was around when the Pulse hit, so he probably knows who the transgenics are, has seen Max on TV; if he is (was?) anything like Dean, Max doesn't really want to mess with him.

Just when she thought her life was getting to a semblance of organization, Dean Winchester has to go and screw it up. Well, no one ever said Max's existence was meant to be easy. In fact, compared to most of the shit she'd had thrown at her, this would be a piece of cake. _Should_ be.

Max clears her throat, hoisting herself up to sit cross-legged on her desk, her hands clasped in front of her. She's far enough away from Dean that she figures she's not in much danger, but close enough so that, should he decide to actually pay attention to her, he wouldn't think she was afraid to get within space of him.

"Dean?" she asks, staring intently at him and cataloguing the movements he makes, much as she had for most other people she'd encountered. It'd done her well in the past, on the occasion that someone she'd met turned out to be her adversary, allowing her the upper hand because she already knew how they carried themselves.

Dean doesn't say anything, and he doesn't shift positions on the couch, but his eyes—half-closed, probably from the pain of his screwed shoulder—slide over to rest on her. His stance is casual enough, but from the way he's gripping onto his jeans, and the sharp clench of his jaw, she can tell he's the farthest thing from it.

"Okay, well, if you won't talk, just listen," Max says, considering what Joshua had told her. "You didn't really give me a chance to explain earlier. Bearing in mind Mole's personality, I can understand your surprise."

Dean blinks.

Maybe this would be harder than she thought. "Guess I should start with my name, since I already know yours," she goes on, uncomfortable with the one-sided small talk. "I'm Max Guevara, former Jam Pony bike messenger, now leader of essentially a nation of people who've been outcast from society. All of us ex-Manticore test subjects."

A tiny spark of interest lights in Dean's eyes, and Max is just glad she caught it. Means something in what she'd said struck a note in Dean's memory or attention, and she's going to latch onto it regardless of how small.

"You do know Manticore, right? They were outed around a year ago," she says, studying Dean's face for any reactions. He doesn't give her any, except maybe the tiniest bit of recognition, which she assumes came from Zero's abbreviated version. "Guess you don't. Long story from Hell short, it was a secret government facility that specialized in throwing together genes from different people and animals to create a super-soldier. That's what all of us in Terminal City are, from various stages and successes of Manticore.

"I'm an X5, so is Alec (that's the guy you threw the knife into, by the way, so if he hits you, that's one of the reasons). The public found out about us about a month and a half ago, and we've been forced to find our own ways. Finally found a place to live—a crappy place to live, but that's our lives for you—here, and we're doing okay, given the givens."

When Dean's eyebrow raises in the international sign of _You've got to be shitting me_, Max is halfway on the way to scoffing, before she realizes that Dean is actually responding to what she's saying. Well, sorta. (The thing that she doesn't get, of course, is the cause for Dean's gesture—his incredulity that what _she_ went through was Hell. Not like he'd be sharing his story anytime soon, but he's unconvinced anyway.)

"What's that supposed to mean?" she retorts, affronted. "You can't call bullshit on something that's _so_ not." She waits for Dean to say something, but he doesn't. "Fine. Well, I've told you my basic background, what about you? All I know is your name's Dean."

Dean snorts. "Liar." he says caustically, searing her with his eyes.

"What?" Max asks, surprised. "I am not."

Dean's lip curls a little as he snaps sarcastically, "So you don't know that I'm Dean Winchester, serial killer extraordinaire? Heard you and your friend talking. Don't lie to me. I'm sick of it."

Max frowns at Dean's words, not because he had totally called her bluff, but because of the vehemence and bitterness—and was there a little shudder?—behind his declaration of hating untruths. She doesn't think anyone really enjoys them, and Max herself despises them, but there was something behind Dean's voice that makes her wonder…

"All right, no lies," she accedes, willing to abide by Dean's stipulations for the time being. "I'm guessing you already know your criminal record, might I say it's very impressive, and going by that, I should have kicked your ass out on the curb a long time ago, or at least let White have it, but I've not. Want to give me a reason why I should let you stay?"

Dean narrows his eyes at her, disdainful. "Well don't do me any _favors_," he snipes. The action going with the words, Dean stands up defiantly, valiantly withholding from wincing.

Max is off the desk and at Dean's side in less than a second, her support the only thing preventing him from collapsing on the ground. "Dean!" she exclaims, catching his waist. "Jesus, you're going to make it worse."

His huff of pure antithesis reaches her ears, even as he breathes heavier than normal. "Dislocated shoulder is nothing," he says, gesturing to the respective appendage. "I've had much, much worse."

"Yeah, well, doesn't matter," Max replies firmly. "Dean, you have to get this fixed up. It'll mess with your mobility or worse if you don't."

"What do you care?" Dean inquires, his head tilted slightly, and isn't _that_ the million dollar question that Max can't answer for the life of her. "I mean, I'm just a guy with an 'impressive criminal record,' right?"

Max shakes her head, still holding tightly onto Dean's middle. "I don't know," she responds honestly. "All I do know is that there's something not right about all this, and I intend to find out what. And if that means harboring a murderer, then so be it."

Dean stares at her for a long minute before sighing. "You're really not going to give up," he states, like he's already got her figured out. "Guess you're the village bitch I get to deal with, then. Super."

Her scowl is frigid, her lips pressed together, but it only feeds into Dean's mood. "I've been told," Max replies glacially. "But no, I don't give up. Not on something that's important to me. Right now, what's important to me is getting that arm of yours reset. It's even more of a concern because you're an Ordinary; unfortunately, you don't have the sped-up healing that we do."

"Lucky me."

"Please," Max entreats, not in the past and not now enjoying the feel of the word on her tongue. But sometimes even small concessions are necessary. "I'll have Rade come in here if you want, just please let her look at your arm. She won't hurt you."

"I'm not scared of anyone," Dean snaps, as if Max's words had scalded him. He glares at the door of her office for a while before his rigid posture slumps in defeat, and he falls back onto the couch cushions.

"Thanks," Max says, walking to her door to call for someone to get the doctor. She's pretty damn sure her office is inescapable apart from the door, but she doesn't want to take any chances with Dean.

He bends his head down so he's looking at the ground, studying the stained, cracked concrete with unusual intensity. "'S only 'cause she's hot," Dean mumbles to himself, so quietly he probably doubted Max could hear him, but she did anyway, and hid a smile.

She steps out into the hallway, glancing around for the nearest transgenic she knows well. "Hey! Dalton!" she calls, spotting the spiky-haired, smartass X6 a few yards away. He looks up in answer. "Can you get Rade in here for me?"

"Why?" Dalton asks curiously.

"Just do it," Max directs; Dalton shrugs and ambles over towards the infirmary. He likes to commend himself for being mostly unafraid of everything, but Max had that _tone_, and he really doesn't want to get in her bad graces. Leastways because she's acting all weird over that Ordinary that no one knows practically anything about. He's wary of Rade, too, but he'd rather her wrath than Max's.

He catches Alec watching him sharply from his position going over some mission specs or other with Mole, and Dalton would bet Vegas money that Alec guesses the reason Dalton's heading to retrieve their best medic. However, much as Dalton idolizes the guy, and much as Dalton doesn't really have a grasp on what's happening, he has the feeling that some very bad shit would go down if Alec and that Dean person were to see each other again soon.

It wouldn't be Dalton's fault, but odds would be split about fifty-fifty as to whether Max would blame Alec or Dalton over the fiasco. And Dalton really isn't in the mood for getting yelled at. Moreover, he's got an X6 named Tyren to beat at pool later tonight, and he's not going to risk winning the sizable pot just because Max felt like censuring him.

"Yo, Rade," Dalton greets, knocking belatedly on the open door to announce his arrival.

Rade whirls around, her chestnut hair tied up in a tight ponytail, but upon seeing Dalton, she relaxes and settles her hands on her hips. "Dalton, what do you want?"

"Loaded question," he tries licentiously, but hurries on at her icy glare. "Max is asking for you."

"It's the Ordinary, isn't it," Rade groans, already unhappy with Dean even staying in Terminal City, let alone at the prospect of treating him. She doesn't have anything against Dean himself, per se, but from what she's witnessed, all Ordinaries are guilty until proven innocent.

"I dunno," Dalton shrugs, leaning against the doorframe. "She just said she needed me to get you, her office."

Rade huffs discontentedly, turning away from Dalton to find something to patch up Dean's shoulder with, once again doleful at T.C.'s dismal cache of medical sundries. The way things had suddenly turned, she'd have to bump up her requisitions to Urgent.

Once she scrounges up some mediocre antiseptic, bandages, and towels, she brushes past Dalton, striding her way across Command and shooting Alec a glower—it's technically his fault, after all, that she has to do this. He doesn't look sheepish in the least. _Shocker_.

* * *

When Rade enters Max's office and shuts the door behind her, she is immediately overwhelmed with how tense the room is. She's used to breakable situations, but at the moment, she feels like one wrong step could shatter the scene like a misplaced block of C-4. Max is leaning against her desk, drumming her fingers against the rough wood, and attempting to not look like she's watching Dean's every move, but from the tightness in the man's back, Rade can tell he's anything but unaware.

"So this is Dean," Rade says conversationally, depositing her items on the desk. "Alec throw you pretty good against the wall there?"

She nods to his shoulder, which, despite whatever recriminations she holds against Ordinaries, is pretty damn gruesome. Through the red staining his shirt, she can surmise how bad the long tear and bloodied skin are underneath. She can already tell neither she, nor even more so he, would like this particular patch-up job.

"Alec's the gangly one who looks like me?" Dean asks, his tone predatory. "Gotta tell you, kid's way scrawnier than I was."

Rade grants Dean a half-smile. At least he wouldn't be a _boring_ patient. Small mercies, she supposes. "Well, let's get this over with, shall we?" Dean makes a noncommittal noise, which she takes as assent. "You'll need to strip."

"What?" Dean coughs, royally caught off guard. "Look, lady, you're cute, but—"

"Shut it," Rade snaps. Her glare isn't quite what pauses him; more the wicked-looking hypodermic that she wields in her hand. "I'm not going to use this unless I have to."

"I thought you said that would kill him!" Max protests, up until now uncharacteristically silent.

Rade regards Max grimly. "Hey, I'm doing you a huge-ass favor here by fixing this guy up, and I am _not_ going to get caught in the crossfire if he decides to go all primal again, all right?" she states, before finally setting down the needle. "Dean—it's Dean, right?—shirt off so I can get to your shoulder. Unless you want nerve damage and irreparable swelling going on; hear that's bad for you folks."

Dean sneers at Rade, before apparently seeing the merit in her argument, and so goes to remove his olive tee shirt, but just as he gets it over his head, the fabric catches on the partially congealed blood on his skin, and Dean yelps in pain before he can fully stifle it.

Rade was completely fine being an unfeeling bitch towards Dean up to that moment. She tends to pose herself as stern and firm, but overall pretty even-tempered and fair; her bedside manner may leave some to be desired, but she isn't a damn pediatrician, after all.

She'd thought of Dean as an equally callous Ordinary, but upon watching his irate determination to, what, prove his toughness she hypothesizes, to the point where any other Ordinary would have begged for at least Novocain, if not morphine, she's thinking some reassessment _may_ be in order. Because it isn't just that—it's the self-loathing that cases Dean's eyes amongst the anger, a self-loathing that Rade realizes stems from his being incapacitated, like it somehow makes him lesser of a person.

Well, her soul be damned, but she isn't heartless. Not even to crazy humans.

"Hold on, Dean," she sighs, perching on the armrest of the couch next to him. She works her fingers over and around the cloth to loosen it gently from the blood, and then eases off the rest of Dean's shirt, avoiding his injury as much as possible. Rade glances over briefly to Max, who's looking rather uncomfortable. "Max, if you want to leave, I've got this."

Max shakes her head, avoiding looking at Dean, whether because of his state of undress or because he's busy doing the steady, methodical breaths in and out that every soldier knows are for trying to control severe anguish.

"No," she answers solidly. But she does take a seat in her wobbly chair and pretend to look over inventory reports.

Rade turns back to Dean, reaching down and unlooping the belt from his jeans and handing it to him. "Sorry," she offers, surprising herself at the sincerity she means. "We have pain killers, but those would kill you along with the pain. Afraid you'll be resorted to biting down on this."

Dean regards her with incredulity. "A belt?" he demands, his voice a little breathier than before. "Seriously? A little ghetto even for you guys, isn't it?"

The medic doesn't answer, gauging Dean as being in the stage of patients getting deliberately hostile as a pretext for their knowing hurt is coming up next. She pours a good amount of the antiseptic on a towel, and, bracing herself—she's seen transgenics in the field with injuries like this, and _they_ weren't so stoic themselves; she's not looking forward to a lower pain tolerance human's reaction—places it firmly against Dean's back.

His _lack_ of response startles her, and she glances up. His expression is oddly placid, but _too_ placid, like he's focusing everything he has into not showing any self-perceived failure.

_Well_, Rade thinks pragmatically, _this'll make my job that much easier._

She makes quick work of cleaning around the laceration, as well as sewing it closed, Dean's skin marred by neat black lines after she's done. The more surface care done, she then peers at the disjointing of his shoulder, his humerus shoving his skin convexly.

She turns to Max, shaking her head. "He really needs to see an actual doctor, Max," she declares. "I mean, I stitched the gash up, but we don't have any radiological equipment here for his shoulder, so I can't see the dislocation properly, not to mention I can't see if he's done damage to any ligaments, muscles, or something else entirely. Best guess is he's at least got a torn rotator cuff, but I just can't tell. Swelling's increasing, too. If he were transgenic, I'd just say pop it back in and let it heal, but for an Ordinary…"

"You can't do anything for it?" Max questions, wishing she'd bothered to learn more of human field med at some point. She just hadn't ever thought she'd need to use it. Ha.

"Oh, sure could, got any x-ray Nomalies hanging around?" Rade retorts, glaring at her de facto CO. "Look, he's got three choices. Go to an actual hospital, you smuggle in an x-ray machine and arthroscopic equipment so I can see what I'd be dealing with, or this guy in all likelihood either loses use of his shoulder or goes into neurogenic shock. Your call."

Max starts to answer, but is interrupted by laughter. Dean's laughter. Both women snap their eyes to him, thoroughly dumbfounded. Not just that he's laughing, but that it sounds _wrong. _They'd never heard him laugh before, exactly, but there's just such a harsh undertone to it that, had they envisioned what normally he'd sound like, that's far from it.

"The way you're talking," Dean says by way of cryptic clarification. "Fuck, you'd think I was your little freak cousin who's never been outside this godforsaken city."

"Max?" Rade asks. She doesn't know any more than Dean's name and species, having not wallowed herself in the full extent of the rumor mill yet.

"He, uh, Cindy ran into him in Sector Five a week or so ago. All he told her was his name, but we found his rap sheet, his and his brother's."

"And?" Rade continues, peering at Dean. "Can't be that bad, right, guy looks not even thirty."

Max chuckles. "That's the thing," she answers. "It said Dean was born in 1979, his brother 1983. We're still marinating."

"Ah. That would do it."

Max looks at Dean's injury once again, and then flips open the cell phone that Alec had insisted she carry. "I'll call Logan, see if he can take Dean to Harbor Lights. I'll take Joshua to help me with Dean through the sewers, just in case."

"Sewers?"

"It's the only covert way in and out of Terminal City," Max explains to Dean, who hadn't been awake for the ride over. "Sorry."

"Stop apologizing," Dean bites, ireful. "It's unbecoming."

Refusing to rise to the bait, Max turns away from him and dials Logan's number from memory. Two rings later, he answers, and she can just picture him rolling away from his computer screen to concentrate better on what she's saying; the familiar image is like a solace to this surreality she'd inadvertently plopped herself in.

"Logan, I need a huge favor from you," she greets, going for the proverbial ripping of the Band-Aid off quickly.

"What kind of favor?" Logan questions, his tone instantly changing to that of wary curiosity.

Max sighs, running her fingers through her hair. "I need you to take Dean to the hospital," she admits. "Things got out of hand over here, and Alec ended up throwing him against a wall. Rade thinks he's got a ripped rotator cuff or something, but she can't see it well enough to set it right. Also, we don't have any numbing stuff that won't totally kill him."

She listens to Logan's brief silence that indicates to her he's for a few moments considering denying that request. "So you want me to give a mass murderer a ride to the hospital to fix up a simple dislocation?"

She grits her teeth, wishing Logan would just trust her on this. "Logan, there's more to the whole fugitive thing than I think we know at this point," she tells him candidly.

She hadn't meant to exactly; Logan errs on the side of seeing things as a little more black and white than she, O.C., and some select transgenics are about there being more than meets the eye. She can't really blame him, seeing as that's how most of Logan's encounters to date have been. Also, more on point, he clearly remembers the whole saga with Dean and his brother, while Max and everyone else in T.C. either don't know at all, or have had to go by third-party information to glean knowledge.

Logan exhales, already knowing he'll give in. "All right, Max," he intones, making his displeasure about the whole thing more than apparent. "But if he kills me, I'm unremorsefully haunting you."

Max quirks a smile despite herself. (Dean, of course, had he heard Logan's statement, would be sure to find the guy's gravesite upon expiration.) "Deal."

Flipping the phone closed, Max turns back around, to find Dean gingerly but anxiously pulling his shirt back over his head, Rade helping him to not aggravate his shoulder. Hearing Max's conversation end, Dean asks, "Who the hell is Logan?"

She regards Dean hesitantly, and then shares a loaded glance with Rade, the other woman's amusement evident. Not like Max can accurately disagree—Logan and Dean in a car together would be a spectacle. Whether made by awkwardness, violence, disparagement, or something utterly different, she morbidly almost wishes she could be there to see Logan's face, if nothing else.

"Truthfully, your total opposite."


	17. Chapter XVI: Harbor Lights

A/N: Same stuff applies as in the first chapter. Oh, and unfortunately I neither own _Supernatural_ nor _Dark Angel_. Just this.

A/N part two: Ugh. It's so very annoying when multiple characters have the same name. Bear with me on this one. I'll try to make it as clear as possible.

A/N part three: Specific episodes of _Supernatural_ mentioned are: "Jus In Bello." Specific episodes of _Dark Angel_ mentioned are: vaguely "The Berrisford Agenda."

* * *

**Of Desire and the Status Quo**

_**Chapter XVI: Harbor Lights**_

Making their way through the sewer system was difficult, seeing as how much Max and Dean's stubborn personalities clash, particularly in these such instances. She was insistent that Joshua carry him like before so that his shoulder wasn't jostled as much, and he was dead set on that he didn't want to be treated like a cripple and could walk just fine on his own two legs, thank you very much.

As a result, they compromised—with Joshua's help, though neither would own up to that—by saying that since Dean would be doped up on pain meds post-hospital visit, on his return trip to Terminal City (supposing he decided to go back), he would allow Joshua to carry him then. With as much masculine dignity as possible, of course.

Dean had set a brisk pace for himself, and though it's more a striding walk for Max than a pace causing exertion for her, she eyes his occasionally misstepping figure with anxiety. If he fell, and for some reason she or Joshua couldn't get to him in time, he wouldn't be able to brace himself on his hands, resulting in him most likely landing right on his shoulder. In a dirty, gritty sewer no less. Dean assures her—rather, he assaults her with—that this injury isn't among his worst, but that doesn't mean she wants him to fall and hurt it more.

Joshua's walking in between the fiery two, trying to make sure they don't kill each other before Dean can get in Logan's car. Max, for her part, is quickly getting over her bending over backwards for him, and feels familiar frustration seep into her bones, frustration _at_ Dean instead of for information _on_ Dean. She had thought he and Alec (and Ben, she supposes) were as different as apples and oranges, but traits of Dean's are starting to spill out that cause her to get an image of the spirited X5 clear in her mind.

The main one, then, being the seeming inability to not keep sending retorts and sarcasm at her, to just let her have the last, acerbic word like most people do. It doesn't necessarily comfort her that Dean's now apparently repressed that manic side of him that she'd seen in Command; the way he acts now gives her the sense that it's how he would act normally, but now that she's viewed the horrific states of mind Dean could be catapulted into, she's just plain unsure about the whole business.

"I didn't do it, you know," Dean says abruptly, breaking his and Max's unofficial I-can-stay-silent-longer-than-you-can-so-_there_ contest.

She turns to look at him, her feet sloshing disgustingly in puddles of God knows what. "Do what?" she asks.

"The shit on my rap sheet," he answers, face grimaced against his injury. Max is honestly astounded he's not curled on the ground in agony. Then again, maybe Dean had repressed the pain just like everything else. He considers for a moment, and then revises, "Well, most of it. _Technically_ the whole grave and fraud things are true, but it's all been for the good of mankind and everything."

Max raises an eyebrow, her pace still with Dean's. "Messing around with graveyards and upsetting people that were laid to rest, not to mention scamming the shit economy is for the good of mankind? Do elaborate."

Dean chuckles, shaking his head. "Never mind," he cuts off, deciding against whatever he had intended to tell her.

If Joshua hadn't been maintaining the barrier between her and Dean, she would've smacked the guy upside the head. "You can't pull that crap with me," she chastises sharply. "Not one thing has made sense about you throughout this whole fiasco, and I know you have the answers."

Dean concedes, "Fair enough," and then glances over at her, his eyes unreadable in the dark. "But honestly? I'm not sure I trust you as far as I can throw you, and with this jacked shoulder, that's not very far."

Max growls in frustration, just glad they're nearing the end of the tunnel. "Dean, you do realize everyone in Terminal City, which we just left, is a genetically engineered killing machine who can maim or slaughter you more ways than you can count, right? If I wanted you dead, you would've been before you hit the floor. It's just a good thing Alec reined in his temper with you."

"Reined in?" Dean replies incredulously. "He nearly ripped off my arm."

An eye roll later, Max responds, "Don't be melodramatic. That _is_ reining in, given that we're Manticore. Although I will say for you that your knife throw was impressive."

Dean remains silent, choosing to shut off any rejoinders he may have had planned rather than spit them at his inhuman counterpart. After a few more minutes of stiff air, he sees yellowy, artificial light valiantly attempting to pierce the blackness of the tunnels, and quickens his steps, a moment later hearing Max and Joshua do the same. Without checking behind him, he grasps hold of the rusty ladder there and pulls himself up, rung by rung, the short distance made longer by the fact that he only has one arm to assist him.

He grunts as he fumbles his way out of the manhole cover—which Logan must've taken off foresightedly for them; Max reminds herself to thank him for that, too—and slides away from it before standing up, albeit with more vertigo than he would usually have. Unable to completely forget the courtesies that even John had instilled in him from a young age (granted, John had taught it more the vein that they'd probably have to use it as a cover or guise to get information from someone, but it's the concept of the thing that counts), he ambles back over to the sewer opening where Max is coming up next, and holds out his right hand to her with a one-shouldered shrug.

Her eyebrows retreat upwards as she looks from his hand to his face, like she can't believe he's actually offering his hand, and it's not like _she's_ the partially handicapped one, but hey, she's not going to refuse the chance to get a little less grime on her if she doesn't have to. So, hoping Dean's judging his remaining strength right, she grasps hold of his warm hand and is pulled upright, admittedly quicker than she'd anticipated.

She nods her appreciation at Dean, and then glances down below to where Joshua hasn't yet started climbing. "I think we've got it from here, Josh," she says, glancing at Dean who at least doesn't _appear_ like he'll go homicidal any time soon. "I'll be down in a bit. And thanks, Big Fella."

Joshua smiles at her, and then backs away into the tunnels, his heavy footsteps echoing on the metal. Max turns around, peering through the slightly foggy night for Logan. She spots his run-down Aztec a few yards away, Logan sitting in the driver's seat with his laptop open on his knees, Max assumes because the heat is running as well as, most likely, his program of tracking sector police cars and motorcycles by way of their GPSs.

Walking over with Dean in step beside her, she taps on the window, Dean unable to restrain a laugh at Logan's flinching from the unexpected knock. Max glares at him, again wishing she could hit him, but still not knowing if he has a head injury or something. She does promise to herself to smack him once he gets healthier, though.

Logan sets his computer on the seat beside him and opens the car door, and then stands against it as he shoots a wary glance at Dean before his gaze returns to Max, the temperature in it substantially warmer. "Hey," he says, giving Max a small smile.

Then, with as much normalcy as he can manage under the circumstances, he turns to the man next to her, for some reason he doesn't know having to quell the disappointment that Dean has a fair bit of muscle and some height on him. Not that he'd exactly expected a clone—or whatever Dean is—of Alec's to be scraggly, but it's a slight ego hit nonetheless.

"Logan Cale," Logan introduces, his hands shoved firmly in his jacket pockets.

"Dean Winchester," Dean replies, and then continues more scornfully, "But you knew that." He catches Max's frown and clarifies, "Yeah, heard that conversation, too, by the way. I'm assuming this is the master cyber-geek Logan you got my records from."

Max rolls her eyes, by now too accustomed with jibes towards Logan from most of the people in T.C., chiefly Alec, so Dean's she presumes are cut from the same cloth, in that he doesn't necessarily mean it as a true insult, rather a mild condescension. Hopefully. "So," Max addresses Logan, "have you talked to Dr. Carr about this? I mean, I don't think enough people have equated Alec to being a transgenic, but…"

"Actually, I did," Logan answers. "I didn't tell him about Dean's, er, _questionable_ history" here, Dean growls lowly, but Max disregards it, so Logan goes on, "so hopefully Sam won't think anything of it, beyond the whole Alec thing."

Dean jolts at the name of Sam, and Max snaps her head towards him, her body immediately tensing. After all, it was Sam who had been a large part of Dean's hallucinatory pleadings, and Max _really_ hopes she hadn't sent Joshua away prematurely. But Dean's expression returns to the careful mask he'd had before, and Max lets her muscles relax a bit. Logan notices the exchange, but wisely stays quiet, trusting that Max knows more about Dean's tendencies than he does.

"You'll call later with an update?" Max inquires, once again having the desire to go with them to the hospital.

"Yeah, yeah, we'll call every two minutes to tell you if my breathing's irregular or if he thinks I'm going to go postal," Dean interrupts caustically. Regarding Logan, he jeers, "But, you know, I can totally just hang out here for however long you two lovebirds are gonna take. My shoulder's feeling awesome."

Max sighs, but nods at Logan to tell him to get going. For his sake, she doesn't want to piss Dean off more than is advantageous for Logan's health. Logan quietly bids her goodbye, and then gets back in his car, Dean slumped in the passenger seat. Max glimpses a brief flash of agony in Dean's face as he attempts to pull on his seatbelt—he promptly decides that's a _bad_ idea—but then it's back to closing off everything. She's unhappy about all of it, but she can't do much, so, waiting until she sees the red taillights turn out of view, she heads back into the sewers, hauling the manhole cover back in place and shoving the route into pure darkness again.

* * *

Logan's teeth are gritted as he catches Dean glaring at the speedometer again. It has to be at least the fifth time, Logan's counted, and he's already sick of it. He'd thought the favor to Max wouldn't be so bad; Dean had been a smartass to him initially, but he'd sat noiselessly enough in the car. Logan'd been okay with that. He'd just get over to Harbor Lights Hospital as quickly as Bessie would allow, drop Dean off with Dr. Carr, wait as far away from the guy as possible, brief Max on how everything's going, drive Dean back, and he could get on his merry way.

But _no_. Dean somehow managed to get under his skin by saying absolutely nothing. For one, he had instantly put his hand on the radio dial, rolling through the few stations until he landed on one that played as close to real rock as Logan had heard in a long time. 'Course, Logan had never really liked rock in the first place, and really, everyone knows you don't play with the radio in another man's car; but on the other hand, he hated it less than, you know, being dead. So he allowed that round to Dean.

Then there was the speedometer thing, like Dean was annoyed at Bessie's incapacity for going fast. Max had, on a few occasions, bitched about the same thing, but at least hers had been somewhat in jest, and she'd dropped it soon after. Dean, on the other hand, was clearly not feeling any humor towards it, and the man's mood was getting blacker and blacker by the second. Logan clenches his hands around the steering wheel, cursing the red light he's forced to stop for.

He hears a chuckle from the seat next to him, and pointedly ignores it. "Am I making you uncomfortable?" Dean questions, shifting in his seat, presumably to get as much weight off his shoulder as possible.

Logan refuses to look at him.

"Oh, come on, Logie," he riles, purposefully putting a booted foot up on the dashboard, leaving a smear of mud on the upholstery. "High blood pressure's not good for you."

Irritated, Logan finally turns to look at Dean. His handsome face is plastered with a cheeky grin, his eyes crinkled, just like Logan can see Alec in a few years (and wow is that weird, to essentially see Alec at around Logan's own age) but there's something else there, something that stutters Logan's annoyance. He's not sure what, just that for all the ribbing sarcasm that's plain in Dean's expression, there's a certain…_bleakness_ in Dean's eyes. They're the windows to the soul, Logan's heard, and in his experience, having an accurate read of someone's gaze proved to be fairly effective in judging truth, no matter how much the person in question considered themselves to be a conman or emotionally masked.

In Max's, he'd always seen earnestness, the desire to do good, even early on when she was supposed to be all about number one; in Alec's, beyond the joking and the Manticore visage, he'd rather surprisingly seen someone who was haunted by his misdeeds he'd carried out before he knew what was right, someone who actually did want to help others beside himself, seek redemption. In his own, he knows, he sees some of the same, in that he truly wants to assist the broken world in any way he can and to lend aid to anyone who wants to help him do it.

He's seen a lot of emotions written in people's eyes, their intentions and wishes. But he's never before seen such pure, unadulterated desolation, like it takes everything to even perform basic functions, to talk or breathe or walk. But he sees that in Dean's, and it, figuratively speaking, knocks him on his ass. Makes him wonder for a second if Dean's vexing of everyone around him is really just a cover for…something. Logan doesn't know what, but he does think that maybe he's misunderstood Dean just a little.

But before he can muse anymore over the enigma that is Dean Winchester, he's startled by a coarse honk from behind him. He looks up, sees that the light has turned green, and quickly presses the gas, Bessie groaning through the intersection. He feels Dean's expectant scrutiny on him, but heads it off, assuring him that he'd just blanked out for a second. Dean turns back around, staring out the dirtied window at the sordid landscape.

Fifteen minutes later, the hospital comes into view, and Logan pulls into a parking space, stepping out of the vehicle and briefly wondering if he should offer to aid Dean with something, but Dean's already got the door shut and is striding toward the hospital like he knows where he's going, so Logan quickly locks the Aztec—it doesn't really matter, unfortunately, since if someone wanted the car, it'd be only too easy to take it, but by now it's just habit—and hurries to catch up with Dean, walking them both to the back entrance of the facility.

* * *

Dr. Samuel Carr has been privy to many things during his lifetime, having the privilege (or is it such a privilege?) to know and remember the world both pre- and post-Pulse. He was already high enough on the doctoral food chain so that when the EMP flashed over the U.S., he wasn't one of the thousands, millions even, that lost their jobs. That was a curse in disguise, in some ways, though, because with the homelessness came the increased hoards of people needing medical assistance.

Many a hospital had been forced to shut down due to the disaster, and insurance rates had skyrocketed, dousing people in debt, mortgage, and pretty soon after, bankruptcy. At first, facilities had still required viable medical insurance and such paperwork, but after a while when it became apparent practically no one had it, they'd had to resort to admitting as many as they could, accepting insurance cards even if the cards didn't necessarily look legit, or else risk being swarmed.

It's a messy, immoral way of doing things, but it makes everyone sleep that much better at night, and as long as they're still getting paid—Sam still isn't completely positive on the schematics of that one, or if he wants to know, but it suffices for funding his basic livelihood, so he hasn't disputed it thus far—the hospital personnel doesn't say much.

For his part, Sam's guilt is staved off whenever Logan contacts him with something. Just knowing that he's able to at the very least sate someone's unease with a snippet of good medical news allows him to not possess as much culpability. That isn't to say that oftentimes Sam is totally and utterly perplexed by the results or patients he ends up consulting because of Logan, but in any event, better his job be out of the ordinary than boring or, worse, soul-damaging.

Hearing a knock, Sam closes the old edition of _Gray's Anatomy_ he'd been reading, and gets up to pull open the service entrance. He sees Logan first, the man's face tight behind his glasses, and steps aside to let him through. His curiosity still fully in effect, he allows the second man to pass, and as he meets the doctor's eyes, Sam's eyebrows raise ever so slightly. He'd never treated Alec directly, but he'd certainly heard about him, and, moreover, a while ago Logan had given him the records of any X series he'd had just in case one of them came to Sam in need of covert mending. Then there is, of equal importance, the fact that Alec's face had been plastered on the news right next to Max's and a few other transgenics'.

Now that he takes a few moments to study the other man, however, he realizes that he's got a long night of confusing questions and probably few answers ahead of him. It's Alec's face, kind of, but older and more…Sam's not sure, but war-torn seems an accurate enough adjective. Given the patients Logan had introduced him to in the past, it's an acute speculation.

He holds his hand out, for some reason feeling a little uneasy around the Alec lookalike. He doesn't _appear_ particularly bloodthirsty. "I'm Dr. Carr," Sam offers, in hindsight unnecessarily. "But you can call me Sam if you wish."

"Dean Winchester," says the other man, and Sam doesn't miss the tight clenching of his jaw as he shakes Sam's hand firmly. "And I'll stick with Dr. Carr."

Sam tries not to frown at Dean's insistence—most people welcome the opportunity to not feel as though their doctors are complete drones—but he isn't a psychologist, and with what Logan had very transiently debriefed him, he'd be too occupied with his real expertise to ponder moonlighting for another scientific field.

"Well," Sam says succinctly, all too aware of the tension already starting between the three. "Follow me, please."

He leads them to a vacant Radiology room (anticipating he'd be taking an x-ray of Dean's chest), telling the nurses at the front desk that he has a private patient coming in, and that he'd previously taken care of the paperwork. It isn't a total lie: Dean _is_ a patient coming in privately, and Logan _does_ have the required paperwork (it's forged, undoubtedly, but those details aren't pertinent) if the need arises to present them. In any case, he gestures for Dean to sit up on the examining table, and locks the door behind him.

"Logan tells me your shoulder is dislocated," Sam begins, eyeing Dean's tee shirt that he can see, despite the dark jade color, is stained black, the cause of which Sam has no illusions isn't blood.

"You could say that," Dean snorts, as if the preliminary diagnosis were an understatement.

"All right, well, let's see the extent of it," Sam says, already wheeling over the x-ray unit. "Just remove your shirt there, and I'll take a look."

Obviously in severe, but withheld, pain, Dean awkwardly maneuvers his shirt over his head, abruptly preferring that instead of Logan here, there'd been Rade (he kinda likes her repartee) or even Max, both people Dean had already met. Logan he still isn't sure on. The guy seems a little too yuppyish for his liking.

Seeing Dean's cringe as the cotton of the shirt starts to come into contact with his wound, Sam moves to guide it off, hedging that Dean would like his shirt being cut through less than he would Sam assisting him. Dean does honestly appreciate the clinical nature Sam is taking with him, not showing any outward signs of discomfort or staring, apart from the preliminaries. Dean's had quite enough gawking in the past couple days to last him a lifetime.

Goosebumps rise on Dean's arms once he's liberated of his shirt, the air conditioning in the hospital either cranked way too high, or maybe their ventilation is made simply of letting in the outside air. Seattle would certainly be frigid enough, especially at night, to act as coolant.

In the harsh fluorescents of the operating room, Dean's shoulder looks even more grisly than it had back in Terminal City, and Sam just barely stops a wince. He's seen a lot in his time as a doctor, and Dean's injury isn't exactly the most heinous he's had, but it ranks up there. He tries to keep a calm demeanor about the whole thing, but truthfully, inside he's doing what Logan is—grimacing.

The proximal head of Dean's humerus is nearly poking out of his skin, the flesh struggling to hold in what's supposed to be intact. The entire left upper portion of his torso is one big bruise, dark purple splotches staining the tanned skin from his left scapula up over his shoulder, across his chest, and up and down his ribs. There's a gash, Sam notes, slicing diagonally along his shoulder blade, but it's been precisely stitched and cleaned up, for which Sam is glad—he'll have enough of a time righting the rest of Dean's injuries.

There's another thing Sam sees, however, that gives him arguably more pause: Dean's chest. The bruising conceals it almost completely, to the point that Sam doubts Logan would be able to see it from his position despite being just seven feet away, but it's in full view to Sam. Broad, raised, crisscrossing lines mar the skin over where his heart is, scars that look thoroughly out of place on Dean. Not just that, but they look…deliberate. Like…no, Sam doesn't even want to go there. He definitely doesn't know Dean well enough to ask him about it, and given Dean's attitude so far, he sincerely doubts Dean would offer up any explanation besides a fist to the face.

"Sam?" Logan prompts, and Sam guesses he'd been silent for too long.

Sam takes his eyes from the gruesome barrage of scars and clears his throat, conferring with Logan mostly, considering Dean looks like he would just as soon reset his shoulder himself and be done with it. "It's a hell of a dislocation," he declares rather unnecessarily, keeping the chest wound to himself. (For now.) "And it would've helped if it'd been iced properly before coming in; the swelling and bruising is severe. I would like to take an x-ray as well as an MRI of the shoulder, though, to see what kind of nerve, especially the axillary nerve and posterior artery, or muscle damage was done internally, as I'm certain there is some going on."

"Don't you have to report that kind of crap?" Dean interjects skeptically. "How is that a good thing? Isn't there a different, less conspicuous way to do this?"

"As it so happens," Sam says levelly, "there aren't any appointments for the MRI lab this time of night, so I can get you in without too much trouble. As for another way, it is possible to detect abnormalities in muscles around the shoulder joint, such as torn rotator cuffs, by using an ultrasound, but that doesn't get as complete a picture as an MRI will. As I said, with an injury this expansive…I would much prefer it if I could see a more advanced radiological image."

"This is ridiculous," Dean grumbles. "I've had dislocations before, fixed some of them up all by myself. MRIs take, like, over an hour, don't they? It's way too overkill just for this."

Sam meets Dean's eyes for a few moments before showing an expression of partial relinquishment. "Well, it's ultimately up to you," he allows. "But, especially with what you just said about having previous shoulder traumas, it would be even more advisable to go through with a comprehensive exam."

In the following quietude of the room, the grinding of Dean's teeth together in his mouth is heard, and both Logan and Sam await his response circumspectly. Logan especially has a feeling of trepidation, suddenly very aware of the fact that Dean is an expertly trained, paramilitary force to be reckoned with. Whereas Logan is, in all truth, paralyzed, and Sam is a physician, trained solely in medicine. Chances are at about ninety-nine percent that if Dean wants to escape, and harm either or both other men while at it, he'd succeed within seconds. And he gets the sense that Max would be…_less than pleased_ with Logan if that happened.

Luckily, though, thirty seconds later, Dean exhales heavily and nods, brushing a hand distractedly through his short hair. "Fine," he musters out. "Just be quick about it, doc."

Sam mentally sighs in relief, not so much at that Dean didn't get violent, but rather that he agreed to inclusive testing. For all Sam's perceived calmness about Dean's state, he really is still unsettled about it. The power to which Dean's shoulder must have been subjected…well, it wasn't caused by any run of the mill scuffle, that much is for sure. He stops his imagination right there before he envisions situations that he would quite rather not.

He's just thankful that Dean wasn't thrown—or hit, or whatever—the tiniest bit more that would thrust his bone completely through the skin. Sam's not versed very well in surgery; he wouldn't be able to hide that one. He's hoping enough as it is that any internal disfiguring to Dean's shoulder won't require it.

"Lie down," Sam instructs, and Dean moves to do so, but can't prevent a small, nearly undetectable whimper from escaping. Sam berates himself for not thinking of the pain it would cause for even the slightest movements, and more than that, he's immensely surprised Dean's made it this far without absolutely crying in agony. Quickly walking over to one of the cabinets in the room, he takes out a small bottle of morphine, unwraps a sterile syringe from its container, and draws out ten milligrams of the liquid. Glancing once at Dean, then at Dean's shoulder, Sam goes back to the bottle and pulls out another five milligrams.

He sets the container in the cabinet, and then strides back over to Dean and sticks the needle straight into his bicep, sending the analgesic coursing through his bloodstream. A few minutes later, Dean nods to Sam, and then lies down as he'd been previously requested. Without further deliberation, Sam hands Dean a lead apron to place over the rest of his torso, and then turns on the radiograph and adjusts the radiation settings before manipulating the arm over Dean's shoulder.

"Okay, hold your breath for a few seconds and don't move," Sam commands, returning to the x-ray console. He presses a button, and the heavy sounds of the machine whirr as it snaps a picture of Dean's bones.

The image appears digitally onto the computer, and Sam shines it onto a larger screen. Dean's injury looks even worse in black and white, the simplicity of the x-ray showing in sharp contrast Dean's humerus jolted a good many centimeters out of its socket and into the surrounding tissue. But, for all its macabre detail, it does allow Sam to figure out how he'll reset the bone.

Dean's expression is placid, less taut than it was before, owing indisputably to the strong opioid suppressing his pain receptors, and Sam positions his hands on either side of Dean's wound, briefly prodding so he gets a sense of where the socket boundaries are. Then, with a swift but exact jerk, he forces the bone rearwards and back into its casing, the rounded, broad shape of Dean's shoulders restored to their proper dimensions.

Dean begins to rotate his joint to test the mobility, but Sam grips onto his forearm. "I still don't know what musculature is affected," he says sharply. "After the MRI, I'll get a better sense of how much would be prudent to allow you to move your shoulder around."

"Whatever," Dean grouses, lowering his feet onto the floor. He's not pleased exactly with how the hospital visit is turning out—Dr. Carr's way too officious for his comfort zone—but he is glad to have his arm not feel like it's a separate limb, lifelessly hanging out in places it most definitely _shouldn't_ be.

He brushes past Logan, who'd been oddly silent throughout most of the proceedings, for a purpose Dean hasn't figured out (not that he really cares that much about the cyber-hacker), and follows Carr out of the Radiology room, down a hallway, down _another_ hallway, and then into an as-yet-unlit lab with the large, cylindrical machine that would dictate whether Dean would get to leave the stupid hospital—he hates hospitals, always has—within the next hour, or whether he'd be stuck for substantially longer while Carr decided what to do with his screwed up tissues and whatever else.

Dean just hopes his muscle has healed over enough from the not-so-long-ago bullet that a possessed Henricksen had shot into him. Dean still isn't entirely certain of how much damage his body retained since his stint in Hell; his outward appearance is for the most part just as before, but who knows if all the internal injuries are the same? He really doesn't want Carr's, or even less Logan's, questions about how he got shot. Though, Dean muses darkly, Logan would probably assume it was a casualty of some killing spree he and Sam had committed or something.

_Sam_. Dean attempts _not_ to flashback to the multiple times Sam had had to stitch, bandage, splint, or relocate his various injuries, flashback to the multiple times he'd had to do the same for Sam. They'd been just fine not visiting hospitals; Dean feels like an unmitigated, full-on, never-gotten-laid pansy with all this attention and scans and morphine and everything. He vows to not tell anyone about this. Ever.

Okay, well, maybe the shoulder thing, 'cause he's got to admit that if you're going to fuck it up, he's done it in spades. He may tweak the parameters of the event a little, but it'll be mainly true. He'll just leave out the professional patching up and go with the good, old-fashioned, blood, sweat, and dirt remedy instead.

Sam tells Logan to wait in the interpretation room as he and Dean progress into the actual examination one. Noticing Dean is still wearing his jeans, Sam grabs a pair of scrub pants from a cabinet and hands them over, explaining that the metal fasteners on the jeans could interfere with the magnets in the MRI and distort any images. Likewise, he has Dean give him his silver ring, setting it on the sill of the two-way window. Dean feels strange without it.

"Have you had any metal screws, nails, or dental work done recently?" Sam asks, prepping the machine.

"No," Dean answers, stripping down to his boxers with a little difficulty due to his still-hurt shoulder, and pulling on the loose scrubs.

"That's good," Sam admits. "Makes things less complicated." He gestures next to the retracting table, and instructs, "Just lie down there, and I'll need you to stay still throughout the whole procedure. There's an intercom inside the machine that connects directly to the room where I'll be, so if you need anything just speak up. It's also fairly closed-in in there; you're not claustrophobic, are you?" Dean glowers in response. "Right. This won't take long."

Once Dean is uncomfortably flat on the table, Sam positions coils over his shoulder, presses the button that starts up the equipment, and steps back into the adjacent room as the MRI withdraws the table. Logan had taken a seat next to the one Sam would need, despite himself fascinated by the procedures. He'd himself had MRIs done for his paralysis, but he'd never been in the computer room during it, to see the images in real-time movement.

Within a few moments, a picture of the muscles, tissues, and blood vessels in Dean's shoulder appears on the screen, the angle shifting continuously. Logan watches, but can't quite make out what he's seeing beyond that it looks vaguely like the thick, corded muscles of, lo and behold, a shoulder. Sam, on the other hand, is studiously taking in the scans, his expression one of both comprehension and regret, the moving grayscale pictures showing him exactly what's wrong internally with Dean's chest.

After about forty-five or so minutes, Sam stops the flow of scans and cycles through them to check if any are too blurry to make out. None are, most likely, Sam thinks, due to Dean's near sedation-still lack of motion during the procedure. He gets up from his chair and enters the exam room again, hitting the button that releases Dean from the chamber. Almost instantly, Dean sits up, walking across the room swiftly to retrieve his ring and change from the scrubs into his jeans.

Sam takes Dean and Logan back to the x-ray room, and projects the dozens of MR images on the screen. Neither of the other two men can read exactly what the pictures represent, and look to Sam expectantly.

"The bad news, Dean, is that your rotator cuff is torn, completely separated from the bone," Sam delivers, pointing at a few of the pictures. Dean squints and tilts his head to try and see what Sam had indicated, but gives up after a second or two, trusting that the doctor at least could see the tear.

"I assume there's good news to this?" Dean prompts.

"Comparatively," Sam answers, and then gestures to a few more images, none of which Dean or Logan can make any more sense of than the last. "The good news is both that there isn't any nerve or blood vessel damage, and that the mini-open surgery to repair the tear is fairly simple and without complications."

"Surgery," Dean repeats, like the word tastes of ash on his tongue. "Dude, I already allowed an MRI. Hospitals and I are not friends, and I'd much prefer it to not go through this shit. I've done fine without operations for minor injuries, and this is just another instance of it."

Sam's displeasure with Dean's outburst is blatant on his face. "This isn't a minor injury, Dean," he insists. "You're lucky you didn't completely lose all use of your shoulder. A little more force and full immobility could very well have been instigated. As it is, two of the four muscles in your rotator cuff were severed. I assure you, the process takes only a few hours, and if it's of supreme importance to you, we can arrange to have a conscious operation, to not put you under full anesthesia."

"And how would you keep _that_ one under wraps?" Dean accuses. "I mean, it's one thing for you to double as a GP and radiologist, but you're not a surgeon too, right? How are you going to explain all this? Considering most people either think I'm some test tube freak taking over Seattle or Ted Bundy reincarnated, I doubt a surgical team being brought in would be conducive to me staying under the radar."

"It's a fair point, Sam," says Logan helpfully, in a strange mix of seeing substantial merit to both men's arguments.

Were he Dean, he'd want whatever care to his shoulder to be done without argument. However, he does fully appreciate the desire to stay out of the limelight. Hell, it was practically his core reason for becoming Eyes Only. He just hopes Dean won't get mad enough for this all to come to blows. Then it really _would_ cause unwanted commotion.

"Serial killer?" Sam can't resist questioning, glancing to Logan. _That's_ a constituent he wasn't informed of.

Dean smirks darkly, with a side order of deprecation. "What, Professor X here didn't tell you?" Dean sneers. "Why, I'm the infamous grave desecrating, multiple homicide-committing, illegal munitions-acquiring, fed-impersonating, escape felon Dean Winchester. Back from the dead, so to speak. Actually, you, doc, should remember."

It takes a second, but then a look of recognition dawns on Sam's face as he looks at Dean with a new persona in mind. It's one of those things where it takes a trigger to access a particular memory, and Dean's done so. Sam's just old enough to where, unlike Max, Alec, and even Logan, he remembers the entire chronicle of the Winchesters with pure clarity, each time they were disseminated on the news, even the mentions of their missing father who Sam recollects setting in his mind as a terrible human being—not just because of the crimes it was posited he perpetrated, but because of what he inflicted on his children.

Sam was in his very early thirties when news reports tapered off, as well as the blend of relief and nervousness the public adopted at hearing the Winchesters had by all accounts stopped their activities. It was even speculated that one or both of them had died through some elaborate and untold series of events. He himself never really had an opinion on the whole thing, entertaining the detached nature that people generally do about news stories, in that he sincerely doubted he'd ever have anything to do with the sensationalism, nor be affected by it, so why be that concerned? The whole business sounded fishy to him, and he decided it'd be better just to ignore it. So he had.

Well, color him emended.

"You're looking…young," Sam says carefully, the same confusion he'd felt thirteen years ago resurfacing. Especially coupled with Dean's "back from the dead" comment, not to mention his general appearance and the unorthodox nature of Logan's call.

"That's it?" Dean inquires, sounding truly surprised. He'd expected more…freaking out, he supposes. Not blasé comments on his countenance, of all things.

Logan shares some of Dean's surprise as well, peering at Sam like he's waiting for the fallout. But for the life of him, Sam can't quite manage full-on spasticity or a reaction thereof. In all truthfulness, Sam hadn't judged Dean as the murderous type upon meeting him—before finding out he was Dean _Winchester_, _the_ Dean Winchester, obviously—and in spite of a few, well, misconstructions, Dean's been compliant enough. Of course, the news broadcasts had portrayed Dean as charming and cunning, but neither of those tags really seemed to fit the man Sam is treating.

Besides, even if he is treating a serial killer, it's not like Dean has harmed him thus far, and it isn't like the FBI—what's left of it, anyway—has the capacity to launch a manhunt for Dean, a criminal they'd long since written off as unsolved. Plus, Sam's armed with, what, a scalpel and a man who isn't trained in fighting? He couldn't really do anything even if he wanted to. The way he reasons, if Dean really had wanted to execute him, he'd probably have done it by now. Sam's already mystified enough with the transgenics and their anatomies and motivations; contemplating Dean as a clone is one thing, but to consider anything else beyond that like, say, necromancy, is way, _way_ above Sam's pay grade.

"Yes, that's it," Sam affirms, his gaze steady. "Look, I never really formed an opinion about you or your brother when it was all hot publicity, and I don't have one now, whether you really are, as you say, Ted Bundy reincarnated, or if it's all just some huge, blown out of proportion misconception. Honestly, I'd prefer just to not read too much into it and simply go with either you're just a random acquaintance of Logan's whose shoulder's busted, or, if you really want to be special, a transgenic clone.

"Regardless, you still need surgery, and there is a surgeon here, coincidentally, that is at worst neutral to the transgenic cause, if not for it. So you wouldn't have to worry about him spouting off to Channel 8 about the newest development, if that's what your concern is."

"What, and this guy's just available at anyone's beck and call to come repair some random person's shoulder?" Dean retorts suspiciously.

Sam chuckles good-naturedly. "Dr. Harlan owes me a favor," he says, and leaves it at that.

For the second time that night, Dean hesitates for a minute, and then gives up, surrender settling over his body. He looks over at Sam.

"Call him."


	18. Chapter XVII: Unrest of the Spirit

A/N: Same stuff applies as in the first chapter. Oh, and unfortunately I neither own _Supernatural_ nor _Dark Angel_. Just this.

A/N part two: Specific episodes of _Supernatural_ mentioned are: a Dean-ism from "When the Levee Breaks." Specific episodes of _Dark Angel_ mentioned are: none. There is an homage to _House_, though.

* * *

**Of Desire and the Status Quo**

**_Chapter XVII: Unrest of the Spirit_**

**_

* * *

_**

When Dr. Ian Harlan's phone rings him awake at two o'clock in the morning, he jolts out of bed, ready to hear the voice of the ER receptionist hurryingly demanding he come into the hospital due to a massive car crash or something. What he doesn't expect to hear is Sam Carr, a physician he'd call more an acquaintance than a friend, requesting that he get there ASAP for a patient Ian has no knowledge about. But, unfortunately, Carr brings up the favor Sam had procured from him months ago, and it's not like he can exactly _refuse_.

"Honey? What is it?" questions his wife, Amy, groggily sitting up in bed when she feels him get out of it.

He turns around to face her, pulling a shirt on over his head and grabbing a pair of pants. "I'm called in for an emergency surgery," Ian explains.

"How bad is it?" Amy asks concernedly, her delicate eyebrows pinching together.

Ian smiles. She'd always worried about the patients he had, no matter how large or small the incident, always followed up with him when he returned home. "Not bad," he replies, slipping on his shoes. "Just a routine arthroscopic for a ripped rotator cuff."

"But it's an emergency?"

"That's what Sam Carr said," Ian sighs, thinking of the evasive yet commanding tone Carr had taken with him. "He didn't say much about it, though."

Amy nods, getting out of bed to kiss him on the cheek. "Don't be home too late," she says, like she does every time he leaves for work regardless of the hour. "I love you."

He pecks her forehead, grabs his hospital badge from the bedpost, and heads out the door. "Love you, too, Ame."

* * *

Ten minutes later, Ian's silver, '15 Audi pulls into his assigned, faded parking space in front of Harbor Lights, no less perplexed about the "emergency" he'd been called in for. Shaking his head and wishing he'd pried Carr for more particulars before rushing over, he locks the car with a double beep and quickly walks into the hospital, curling into his jacket against the cold air.

He gives a quick greeting to the receptionist, who looks a little puzzled as to why Ian's there, and makes his way to the second Operation room, the only other detail Carr had confessed. As he enters, he takes in the three figures within, a little taken aback at the odd grouping, but focusing on Carr first. He hopes the brooding guy in the green shirt isn't his patient.

"Sam," Ian says, his face exuding question as he tosses aside his jacket. "What's the emergency?"

Sam clears his throat, and then nods at whom he'd noticed Ian studiously try to not look. "This is Dean, he's the one who needs the shoulder operation," Sam introduces.

Ian internally groans; it's just his luck that he's dragged out of the first deep sleep he's had in a long time just to be told he has to patch together a guy that seriously looks like he _doesn't_ want to be worked over. But Ian isn't one to back down from a challenge, and he didn't get to be head surgeon by shying away from a sulking, irate patient.

"All right, then, Dean, why don't you tell me what happened," Ian asks, beginning to prep the equipment he'd need for the surgery.

"I'd rather not."

The cold detachment in Dean's voice throws Ian off for a moment, but he continues pulling on his rubber gloves nonetheless. "Ripped rotator cuffs aren't trivial injuries, tough guy," Ian levels, his gaze steady on Dean. "I make a nick in the wrong place or attach a tendon to the wrong part, you could say sayonara to movement in your arm, adduction, abduction, can't be sure of what'd be axed in things like this."

"Yeah, yeah, I got it, Dr. Hardy. Bad snip, Earth goes kablooey," Dean says, rolling his eyes. Both doctors look peeved for a second, before they frown, missing Dean's reference. "Wow, what'd you live under a rock?"

"I believe it's _General Hospital_," Logan offers helpfully, and the three others look over at him.

"The inner soapie Logan makes an appearance," Dean commends, chuckling to himself.

"This has all been well and good," interrupts Ian, wishing even more that he were back at his own house, and not stuck with a pop culture-referencing antagonist. "But if you don't mind, I'd like to get to work."

Dean shrugs one shoulder, suddenly devoid of the will to whip a comeback. It's clear to him that this surgeon doesn't want to be here any more than Dean does, and Dean knows how to recognize the fastest way out when he sees it. Right now, that's complying with the doctor's orders, although there's no way Dean's going to let him knock him out. Dope him up on morphine, fine, Dean's down with that, but if he can avoid losing consciousness under any circumstance, he's going to do so. He'd probably allow it if he were given back up by, say, his brother, but everyone in his immediate vicinity he doubts could hold their own against Stunt Bad Guy #3, let alone any real danger. Not that Dean anticipates any danger, but all the same…

"No sedatives."

Ian glances over at Sam, like he expects the GP to talk some sense into Dean, but Sam has figured out Dean doesn't appreciate opposition from almost the moment he met him. "Humor him," Sam suggests, both he and Dean looking at Ian pointedly.

Ian sighs, but takes an alcohol swab from a container in the cupboard and swathes a portion of Dean's arm with it, before taking up the abandoned bottle of morphine that had been used earlier and pulling out a bit more than Sam had. Without much of a bedside manner—and really, who could blame him?—he injects Dean with the opioid, and then walks over to the sink, waiting for it to take effect, and washes his arms up almost to his elbow. Sam dries them and puts plastic gloves over Ian's hands, and then pulls over the cart of various medical utensils he'd anticipated he would need for the surgery.

Logan, meanwhile, is standing awkwardly by, watching the proceedings. He's rather uncomfortable, given that both Sam and Ian are in their doctor modes now, going through the pre-op motions in tandem even though, as far as Logan knows, the two men hadn't had much of a correspondence before now. But, he muses, that's probably what all doctors have: this ingrained sort of adaptability that exerts itself when the need arises, the taught-to-death collaboration that prevents most clumsy maneuvers between physicians.

He would have watched some more, equally amazed, were it not for the huge-ass tools that Ian is preparing for Dean's shoulder, preparing to slice into the warm skin and produce a thick line of red. Logan isn't one of those queasy, faint at the sight of blood sort of prissies, but it doesn't lend way to making him want to watch an invasive surgery on a guy he doesn't even really like. So Logan quickly edges out the door, propelled in part by his own not wanting to watch the procedure, and in part by Dean's death glare that, regardless of any similarity it bears to Max's or Alec's—both having bestowed him with that sort of look so many times over he's used to them—makes him feel about seven.

* * *

The first thing he does upon leaving the operating room is walk the next hallway over, out of sight (and hopefully out of mind) of the two working doctors and one malaise patient. He heavily—and he means _heavily_—considers just booking it out of there, on the drive to T.C. weighing how he'll say "Oops, sorry, Max, nothing the doctors could do. Dean died. M'bad. So how about dinner?"

Somehow he thinks Max would take that badly.

So, instead of taking the easy way out, like he never seems able to do, he withdraws his behind-what-the-times-should-produce cell phone and dials Max's number from memory. Strictly speaking, her personal phone is solely for urgent cases—of the "T.C. is being bombed!" or "Joshua's been shot, Max!" type—but hey, Logan's pretty sure T.C.'s slow tonight, and anyway, Max _did_ ask him to call her as soon as he knew anything…

Okay, so maybe he just doesn't want to talk to Mole. Sue him. It's not _his_ fault the scaly bastard isn't a people-person. It's not _his_ fault Mole (and oddly lots of other transgenics) seems to think he's like a seedy politician from planet Vulcan or something. Whatever.

Max picks up after barely a ring, her voice already in panic mode, as Logan expects it always is when someone calls her on that line. "Logan?" she asks, her voice rushed. "What is it? Did something happen?"

"Whoa, calm down," Logan mollifies, trying his best to imbue the soothingest of soothing tones to his voice. "Everyone's okay."

"You know this cell is for people lying in a ditch, right?"

Logan chuckles inwardly. _Stage One: Freak Out. Complete. Stage Two: Bitchiness. In Progress._

"You said to update you when I got a chance," Logan says medially.

Logan can hear the smug smile in her voice when Max responds, "You're scared of Mole, aren't you?"

"I am not scared," Logan grumbles, thinking of he chain-smoking lizard decidedly _un_fondly. "I'm just…with reservation is all."

Max's silence is absolutely _saturated_ with eyebrow raising undertones.

"Too bad I have all this information about Dean and no one to tell it to…" Logan feels the jibe is both too lighthearted in face of both Dean's injury and the whole war thing going on, as well as cattier than Logan would like, but if there's one thing Max responds to, besides violence, it's baiting.

"Spill," Max snaps finally. Logan smiles to himself. _Hook, line, sinker._ He adores the woman, honestly, but in some instances, even he'll admit she's predictable.

Logan looks in the general direction of the room he'd just left, like he can see through the walls and observe the surgery. "Sam Carr and this surgeon he knows are operating on Dean's shoulder right now," Logan relays. Max stays quiet, stoic, and Logan knows it's her default setting for allowing herself to absorb lots of probably terrible information without reacting until it's all over with. And Logan won't sugarcoat it for her. "They said it was bad, something about a severed rotator cuff and his humerus being almost through the skin, but it's reparable. He should be back to sulkily beating the crap out of things in no time."

It takes a second or two, in which Logan can practically see Max's mood change, but then she chuckles. "I'm sensing some latent hostility there, Logan," she smiles. "You're not seriously _jealous_ of Dean, are you?"

He snorts. "Oh yes," Logan says sarcastically, "I'm extremely envious of a psycho killer with some not-so-repressed violent tendencies. He's my idol and I can't take it."

Logan knows his denial—which is legit, _duh_—won't change any preconceptions Max may have formulated, but at least he tried. It's unfathomable to him how Max could come to the conclusion that Logan's begrudging Dean because of some weird Freudian subconsciousness, but it's not the first time Logan's not been able to figure Max out. He'll let her draw her own workings. As long as Dean doesn't get it in his head that Logan's jealous and thus unyieldingly ridicule him (though that hope is pretty much just a shred; damn bastard's too perceptive for his own good), Logan'll be fine.

"So he's really okay?" Logan has to snap away from his sullen musings to get back into the conversation, and it takes him a moment to realize what Max is saying, but then his brain fills in the lapse of concentration.

"Dean?" Logan asks unnecessarily, before hurrying on in lieu of Max retorting something to him, "He'll recover. I've got a feeling the guy's immune system is too accustomed to being brutalized for him to really get the effects of injuries anyway. He's almost more stubborn than you."

Max laughs. "Well, we'll see about that," she replies teasingly.

Logan hears some rustling of papers on Max's end, and he guesses she's in the middle of some tedious accounting or something, and while he's got a shrewd idea she's grateful for the distraction of his call, he knows T.C. can't really afford to have slack in attention to their goings-on, let alone because of he and Max rehashing the fact that Dean will be just super over and over.

"You should probably get back to your work," Logan advises, resigning himself to sitting in one of the very uncomfortable plastic chairs while Sam and Ian hack away at Dean's shoulder. Max starts to say something, but Logan, predicting her words, interrupts, "He's _fine_, Max," and then hangs up before she can protest some more.

Not but three seconds after he does so, the scratchy hospital intercom whines, in a vaguely familiar voice, "Code blue in O.R. Three! Crash team and Dr. Connell to O.R. Three _immediately_!"

Logan's head snaps up to the reception desk, where the nurse has vanished, and is instead rushing up the hallway with a doctor, his badge reading _Dr. Jack Connell – ER_, the both of them heading to where Logan had retreated from a few minutes ago. Logan looks down at his cell phone.

"Or maybe he isn't fine."

* * *

Max stares at her own phone, half amused and half annoyed at Logan's brush-off. Not that she would've done any better to him, but that so isn't the point. However, despite her initial upset with him for dialing the number that she'd _explicitly_ told _everyone_ is only for dire emergencies, she's glad for the news he'd brought. Of course she hadn't been worried. Hell no. Max doesn't _worry_. She just…gets concerned for the people she has come to not possess pure hatred for.

Setting the cellular on the table, Max ponders for a moment before she gives into her catlike meddling, starting to pull on her boots and grab her gloves. She'd thrown her favorite black leather jacket haphazardly over the dilapidated and some-springs-exposed chair earlier, and, obviously not one to ever forget to wear it, she goes to pick it up.

"Not planning on breaking into the hospital, are you, Max?"

Max whirls around, her gasp of surprise barely held back. She flips on the standing lamp to reveal Alec, partially hidden in shadows, behind the door. She scowls, not so much that it's _him_, but that he'd startled her. Funny, but she'd never had anyone able to sneak up upon her before she'd met Alec. The bastard.

"What, you get your rocks off listening in darkness to people's phone calls?" she bites, shrugging on her jacket.

Alec chuckles, standing calm as you please with his arms folded across his chest. "Aw, Maxie, now why would _you_ want to know how I do or don't get, as you so eloquently spewed it, my rocks off?"

"Oh, give it up, Alec."

"You wish."

"Was there something you wanted?" Max grates out, frustrated, gripping onto the doorframe with more force than strictly necessary. At Alec's lecherous grin, she addendums, "And don't even _think_ of making that dirty."

His gaze retains the same amount of debauchery, but then dims as his face sobers, his hands moving to burying deep in his pockets. "Don't go over there, Max."

"And why the hell not?" Max retorts, inwardly cringing at the petulance coming through. "So what if I want to make sure he and Logan aren't killing each other?"

Alec laughs, cackles really, and ignores Max's affronted glare. "Okay, let's be real for a moment," he chokes out. "You honestly think _Logan_ could kill _Dean_? Maybe with his prowess of viper-like rhetoric."

Max would like nothing more than to strangle Alec for his pointedly dogged remarks about Logan, and with Alec's slightly tensed stature and focused eyes, she knows he expects it. She won't, though, for one reason—

"Fine," Max sniffs. "I want to make sure Dean's not killing Logan."

"Dude has a busted shoulder, Max."

"Your point?"

"_I_ gave him the busted shoulder, thanks very much. It's not to be taken lightly."

"Just tell me what you're getting at, Alec."

"You're putting us all at risk. You shouldn't go. Dean'll survive."

Max pauses, peering shrewdly into Alec's face. "You want to go, don't you?"

"Uh, yeah."

His tone is entirely unapologetic, and Max can see the earnestness in his eyes, but she just can't do it. With a genuinely remorseful sigh, she replies, "Alec, I'm sorry, but…I don't think that'd be the best idea right now. Dean's going to need as little stress as possible in his condition."

Alecs face is absolutely furious, mouth in a fine, white line. "You may be able to control the other people in T.C., Max, but you can't control me. It doesn't _work_ that way. I put up with a lot of shit from you, but with this I won't."

Max digs her nails into her jeans, begging herself for composure. She's discovering some self-hatred for doing this. "Someone needs to stay here and man T.C. I'll find some other Xs to come with me to retrieve Dean. Please, Alec, just do as I say."

Alec simply stares at her, like he's just too enraged to do anything else. Max takes the opportunity with a wince, and leaves Alec in her office, already with some transgenics she can take with her in mind. Problem is, she knows that in any other circumstance, Alec would've been more than enough backup, but now that he isn't coming, she's going to need three others to help her. And that kinda hits home. In a way she doesn't have time to explore.

* * *

To say Ian was happy about performing an operation on this particular patient would be an outright lie. Not that Ian is ever exactly _happy_ about performing operations, but usually he's pretty neutral about it all. Perhaps it would have been simpler if Dean Winchester were completely put under, like the majority of Ian's patients are, or if Ian hadn't been so rudely awakened to do so, or, you know, if Dean weren't so damn hostile about all of it.

So the guy wasn't exactly throwing punches, but he wasn't exactly a bucket of honey either. The best Ian had hoped for was that Dean would be a little more complacent after the dose of morphine he'd received. Most people were. After all, it _is_ in the opium family. But no. Dean just _had _to not be most people.

The operation had started off fine, comparatively, and Ian was beginning to place it among not the easiest by any means, but at least not so terrible that he wanted to kill someone. Dean actually, Ian reluctantly admitted, was about as good as someone knocked out, in terms of kinesiology. He was as still as a stone, Dean was, which did make Ian's job that much more linear, and that worked for a while, before everything went haywire.

Everything had been going swimmingly, the preparations going on as cleanly as a textbook's, until Ian holds his hand out to Sam and asks, "Scalpel." He should have realized the warning signs when Dean's head, which had been before faced forward and unmoving, snapped over to him.

As with all procedures where his patient is awake, Ian chooses to go with the more calming approach by warning the individual any sensations they may feel; especially with the ones that presume being doped up on morphine equals no sensation at all. So, as per usual, Ian advises, "This may pinch a bit," and starts to press the blade through Dean's skin.

The only vocal hint Ian is given is the part whimper, part command of "No!" that Dean manages. Of course, it doesn't really register until Ian notices he's on the floor a good six feet away, his face hurting like a bitch, and his scalpel skidded at least ten feet from him. Ian shoots his eyes up to Dean, whose own eyes are wild, and whose shoulder no longer has the small nick that Ian had made, but rather a jagged, deep gash that had most likely been a result of the blade that had been in Ian's hand and scraped across Dean's skin when he'd punched the doctor.

"Sam!" Ian yells, looking over at his co-worker, having stepped back a few paces from Dean, whose breaths are coming in fast and uneven. "The alprazolam! Now!"

Whatever differences Sam and Ian have with each other are put on hold, whatever upset Sam may have with being ordered around by Ian (after all, they're the same level of doctors, just in different specialties) is suspended insofar as Dean's abrupt panic attack went on. Sam immediately grabs the glass bottle Ian had demanded and pulls out slightly more than the recommended dosage, stepping towards Dean to insert the benzodiazepine into Dean's bloodstream. Unfortunately, even Sam underestimates Dean's training and reflexes, heightened exponentially in his aggravated state, and Dean, in a movement Sam can't quite catch, snatches the needle and jabs it into Sam's own arm. The fast-acting sedative does just what it's meant to, and within two seconds, Sam's body falls limp to the linoleum.

Ian can't believe how a straightforward rotator cuff repair got out of hand so quickly, and by a seemingly meaningless trigger. The more remarkable thing is that Dean's not resembling someone whose brain went on the fritz and starts issuing signals to go massacre people. He looks more like…well, the only close analogy Ian can give is a cornered animal. Like Dean had reverted into a more primal form and is simply reacting—albeit violently—to stimuli he feels are threatening.

Regardless of what Dean's thinking or not thinking at the moment, though, Ian isn't quite sure his own health isn't jeopardized. So, Ian scrambles over to the wall of the room that holds the white service telephone connected to the intercom.

"Code blue in O.R. Three!" Ian commands into the speaker, anticipating Dean's just as likely to have a cardiac arrest as knock Ian out. This requires more specialty than Ian's got. "Crash team and Dr. Connell to O.R. Three _immediately_!"

Hospitals post-Pulse may be lax in a lot of areas, lacking funding and staff and all that, but if they kept anything, it's emergency response, at least within the hospital itself. And, thankfully, in this case they're even ahead of schedule. It's barely ten or fifteen seconds after Ian yelled into the phone that a crash cart, three nurses, and the head of the Emergency Room, Jack Connell, rush into the room and set to work.

"What happened?" Jack demands, already setting to do what Sam had tried, and pull out milligrams of the depressant.

"No, don't!" Ian halts, getting to his feet and preventing Jack from quite possibly getting himself knocked out just like Sam had. "Name's Dean Winchester, came in for shoulder surgery, started having a panic attack when I started in with the scalpel. Carr tried the alprazolam and got himself injected instead. It won't work that way, Connell!"

Jack's slate-colored stare is stern, always has been, but he nods curtly just the same, used to being in situations where he doesn't know all the details but has to trust the attending physicians or risk the patient's life, if not his own or others'. Inoculating Dean with the sedative would make his job that much more facile, but Jack rarely gets that luxury.

He glances to the three nurses and barks, "Smith, Wallace, arms; Harlan, Price, his legs!"

They all do Jack's bidding, even Ian, and force Dean down onto the bed. While Ian winces at Dean's shoulder, at the fact that they could very well be damaging the joint more than it already is, he understands that getting Dean's heart rate, breathing, and brainwaves back to normal is paramount right now.

Jack grabs his penlight and swipes it across both of Dean's eyes. "Pupils dilated, unresponsive!" he announces, and then, with the speed of immense repetition, hooks up heart and O2 stats monitors, glancing up at the reading. "HR 300 bpm, O2 deficiency!"

In normal instances, Jack wouldn't hesitate to put on an oxygen mask, hook up an IV, and administer a sedative, if not alprazolam then a similar drug. In normal instances, this would be just another day at the office, another faceless patient. But Jack can see this Dean Winchester isn't just another faceless patient, not by the disconcerted, even scared, expression on Ian Harlan, a doctor Jack draws up as unflappable. Add to that the fact that Dean not only overpowered Sam Carr in a huge way, but managed to inject him with his own hypodermic.

Jack relies on medicine for most cases, puts his faith in artificially manufactured help. He thinks that manual or sketchy methods are very rarely applicable, and that people that perform them are too soft to be in this profession, or at least in the ER. But he can see, halfway inexplicably, that Dean's problem is not so much biological as psychological. That this isn't some random illness that's afflicting Dean, but rather was set off by something Ian must have done, however small.

He sets down his penlight, and instead peers into Dean's face, keeping a safe distance but close enough to study the young man's features. "Dean. Dean, can you hear me?" he asks, feeling altogether stupid but hey, whatever may work. "My name is Jack Connell, I don't mean you any harm."

Ian does a double-take, almost loosening his hold on Dean's ankle and knee. "What the hell?" he exclaims, staring at Jack. "Seriously, what the hell?"

Jack silences Ian with a glare edging towards Dean's territory, and holds Dean's jaw firmly between his fingers, studying the man's face again. "Eyes are unfocused but constant," Jack remarks curiously. "Heart rate and breathing suggest high activity or stress, but there are no physical signs. Your patient is hallucinating something intensely vivid, perhaps a memory or projection of a circumstance. What you need is a neurologist, not an ER doctor."

"I thought it pertinent—"

"I'll give him a sedative," Jack interrupts, pulling out a different bottle of liquid and drawing it into a needle. With precision but expedition, he depresses the plunger into Dean's bicep, and within seconds, the rapid-fire beeping of the monitors slow, Dean's nearly iris-less eyes roll back into his head, and his wound muscles relax with the barbiturate. Jack looks up sternly at Ian, making the surgeon feel as if he's a lowly grad student again and Jack is the professor that's brilliant but everyone hates. "Now finish your damn procedure. Then get Dr. Pearson in here to take an EEG and perhaps CT scan. I'm sure he'll find this man's readouts fascinating."

Ian stands speechless, Jack gesturing the nurses out of the room. Giving Ian a meaningful glance, Jack motions for him to do his bidding. Ian scowls at Dean's prone, synthetically sleeping form, and then exits the operating room, with a final, seethed mumble.

"I knew I never should have bet Sam that woman had lupus. It's never freakin' lupus."


	19. Chapter XVIII: No One Alive

A/N: Same stuff applies as in the first chapter. Oh, and unfortunately I neither own _Supernatural _nor _Dark Angel_. Just this.

A/N part two: I really dislike it how this website cuts off chapter titles. The REAL title is the one that's shown in the chapter itself. Also, um…evidently when I wrote some of the prior chapters, I neglected to connect some facts. So, that being the case, the following has changed: Ian Harlan left with the nurses in the previous chapter (small paragraph added to the end of it), and Alec is NOT going with Max. I added an explainer in the previous chapter, and Max briefly expounds upon it here. I apologize profusely for this. I assure you, it will work out, and these errors are not in the chapters to come.

A/N part three: _SUPERNATURAL_ RETURNED FINALLY. AND GREAT FUCKING EPISODE! Crazy Dean=LOVE.

A/N part four: Specific episodes of _Supernatural _mentioned are: none. Specific episodes of _Dark Angel _mentioned are: none.

* * *

**Of Desire and the Status Quo**

_**Chapter XVIII: No One Alive Who Is Youer Than You

* * *

**_

Despite everything in him screaming not to do it, that it's not his responsibility and doesn't concern him, Logan rushes as quickly as he can—okay, maybe not as fast as if, for example, Max were in trouble, but faster than a saunter anyhow—to the operating room. When he reaches the door, he finds three nurses walking out, their expressions revealing not too much more than neutrality, but that doesn't mean anything. Dean could be dead or, hopefully, not.

Two of them look new to Logan, judging by the slightly nauseas and upset visages they carry that Logan's now close enough to see, and so they don't seem like they could care less about him. Dr. Harlan also passes him swiftly, but judging by his face and total lack of noticing Logan, something very unfavorable to him went down in the room. The last nurse, however, a woman he'd put at about fifty, places her somewhat arthritic hand on his chest.

"Sir?" she asks, commands really, and although Logan probably outweighs and outstrengths her, he gets the blinking red light silent warning that she's no-nonsense enough to bring him down like an adolescent. She jerks her thumb towards the door she just left. "Kid's in bad shape. You family?"

The nurse is obviously dubious, and Logan would be as well, but he has his mind made up. (Although he's fully expecting to put this under the Max Favors category.) "Something like that," Logan answers, hoping the nurse would accept the lie. But of course his luck isn't that good. "Cousin. Paternal side," he adds.

It's even more blatantly clear now that the nurse doesn't believe a word of what Logan is saying, but feasibly she can't detain him. Foremost, Logan infers that Dean is unconscious and thus can't vouch for or condemn him. Secondly, Dean's not in the hospital system, so they can't easily find out any family Dean may have. There's also the selfish reason that if the nurse forcibly makes Logan leave but Logan's legit, there would be a chance she could be sued. So she goes against her own instincts and steps aside, her shrewd eyes following Logan the whole way.

The first thing the hacker notices is the state of the three people in the room. He'd expected Dean to be out of it, and sure enough, the man is passed out, his body still as death. But what Logan didn't expect to see is Sam Carr also unmoving, currently resting at an odd angle on a counter, as well as the doctor Logan remembers reigned in the ER. Who is now peering at Dean like he's some sort of previously unidentified species of monotreme or something.

"What the hell happened here?" Logan asks, eyes switching between the three men, but voice centered on the only conscious one. "Dr. Connell?"

Jack turns around to face Logan, looking a bit affronted, but Logan really can't find the mind to care what the doctor thinks of him. He tries not to look at Sam or Dean, the both of them too eerily pale for comfort.

"Who are you?" Jack inquires, assessing Logan.

"Logan Cale," Logan answers. "Dr. Carr is my physician, and Dean is my…er…cousin."

Jack frowns, and Logan fears the worst. "Didn't peg this man for having much of a family," he observes. "There a reason your last names are different?"

Max is _so _owing him for this. It's way beyond his already nonexistent pay grade. "Winchester's his mom's name," Logan lies, schooling his face to be neutral instead of _Shit, I'm lying to a freakin' doctor_. "She changed it back after his father skipped out when he was a baby. Tragic, really."

Either Jack is phenomenally naïve in terms of reading people, Logan ponders, or he simply doesn't give a damn that Logan's lying. "You know, I swear the name sounds familiar," Jack muses aloud. "Just can't put my finger on why."

"Probably just one of those names, I guess." Not for the first time, Logan wishes Dean and his brother hadn't been so prolific or, quite frankly, strange in their crimes. It just figures Logan would only have the two screw up his life when they are supposed to be dead and the world is in turmoil.

"Sure."

Logan clears his throat, anxious to get away from the conversation. "So what the hell happened?" he repeats, his blue eyes stern. "When I left, Dr. Carr was totally fine, as was Dean, save for the shoulder anyway. Now they're both unconscious? What's the deal?"

Jack seems to Logan to be irked, but Logan has a thick stubborn streak in his veins when he needs to. Finally, Jack submits, "The patient had a neural panic attack, to the point of tachycardia, almost cardiac arrest. I put in an order for an EEG—I told Dr. Harlan to retrieve the neurologist to perform that exam—to see if it surfaces again, find out what went on. As for Dr. Carr, well, let's just say he got on the wrong end of a needle."

Logan, to be quite honest, is pretty damn freaked out by all of this, whatever his composed expression may say. He's a little surprised that he's not as freaked about Sam, but that's probably because, he surmises, neither Jack nor the previously exiting Ian seemed to be too concerned about him. What Logan's more shocked over—and he really, really wishes he could pass it off as just worrying about exposure, but knows he can't—is his concern for Dean's condition.

He's not exactly been subtle about his dislike for the man, and that hasn't changed even now, but there's just something about Dean's motionless, rigid form that strikes a chord within Logan. It's not even just the state of unconsciousness, for Logan's fairly sure this kind of thing has happened to Dean often, and Logan's used to the thing in general, but rather the distress that he can see plain as day on Dean's face. His body is still, but his eyes under closed lids are moving back and forth in a semblance of REM sleep, and yet Logan sincerely doubts he's dreaming of rainbows and unicorns. There's also the nearly unnoticeable moving of Dean's lips and accompanying sounds of what Logan can only describe as some sort of pain, and everything just leads to the conclusion that even in unconsciousness, when the mind is supposed to be pleasantly blank, Dean's is instead in overdrive, the ability to repress whatever sickening memories or thoughts he has when he's awake vaporized.

Logan tears his eyes away from Dean to look at Jack, and it's then that his mind fully registers what the ER doctor had said. "Wait…EEG?" Logan asks with a disturbed frown.

"It stands for electroencephalogram," Jack recites. "Measures brain waves to—"

"I know what it is," Logan interrupts impatiently. "But why are you going to give Dean one? I thought it was his shoulder that was messed up, not his brain."

He chooses not to mention the whole serial killer past thing, nor what he, Max, and the few others that know about Dean's appearance speculated and noticed. In particular the bit where Dean had muttered things that had very disreputable origins, things that were absurd to think were true, and yet about which Dean had such conviction. He's fairly sure it wouldn't help matters much. In addition, Logan's just as positive, if not more so, that Dean's brain is just fine, works like a charm. It's his memories, whether real or not, that are whacked, and with the intensity of them that Logan's seen, he feels there's a risk the EEG would imply Dean had epilepsy or some such, and it's already hard enough to hide a surgery and now ER interference without adding a new seizure case.

However, Logan's resistance means that Jack looks at him like, well, like he's got no medical experience whatsoever, nor any basic reasoning skills. "Mr. Cale, I'm afraid a reaction such that Dean had does not indicate a normal brainwave pattern. I would like to see it in detail, as well as I'm sure our neurologist will."

"What's to say it's not just a reaction to the drugs then?" Logan presses, in a last ditch effort.

Jack laughs it off. "The only drugs we gave him were morphine, and then during the panic attack a benzodiazepine. Neither of which would cause any sort of side effect such that Dean endured."

Logan has to concede that point, and although he himself thinks it'd be interesting to see an EEG, MRI, or the like of Dean's brain patterns, he knows he can't allow it to happen. "Well, Dr. Connell, I can't let you authorize that," Logan says.

"Mr. Cale, I don't think you appreciate the brevity of the situation," Jack protests. "With such an adverse reaction that Dean had, the best way to figure out what went on is to perform these tests—"

"And hospital law states that if, in the event of a patient being incapacitated or otherwise unable to decide what procedures should be done, then a family member shall decide instead," Logan intercedes again, stoic. "That would be me, in this instance, and I'm going to have to have Dean discharged, no tests." Logan glances at Dean again quickly, and then remembers, "But first perform the shoulder surgery. That I'll agree to."

Jack's face is pure aversion, but his hands are tied, and both men know it. "I'll go see to Dr. Harlan," he says finally, giving Logan a final baleful look before walking out of the OR, presumably to retrieve Dean's surgeon. Logan exhales in relief, in truth a little shocked the doctor didn't pick up on Logan's pure bullshit he just proclaimed.

"You do that," Logan says with a smarmy smile. When the door to the room closes, Logan hurries into action. Apologizing to Sam's still mostly unconscious body, he goes for Dean instead, knowing that between the two men, Max would much rather Logan save Dean than save Sam who is, after all, in a hospital.

Logan takes a quick look at Dean's IV to commit it to memory just in case. It's only a standard saline drip—Logan guesses they'd already gone through the more potent drugs for his condition—and, although making a note that Rade, T.C.'s medic, should probably put Dean back on that particular drip, he pulls out the needle in Dean's wrist, twisting the valve to the off position.

Logan knows Dean's physique means there's no way he can get him out of the hospital without dragging the man on the floor. And, however the hospital staff may be oblivious on some occasions, he's pretty sure they'd be against him pulling an unconscious, formerly seizing body out of the building. So, for one of the very rare times he's glad he's paralyzed from the waist down, Logan walks out of the room towards the nurse's station.

The woman looks up, and has vague recollection on her face, but Logan's not going to play that up. He puts on an a-little-too-campy countenance and turns the worry up to eleven, so to speak.

"Sir?" she asks, falling for the façade.

"I need a wheelchair!" Logan exclaims, putting in the knees buckling thing for good measure. "I'm under experimental treatment, but it's not working. I need a wheelchair!"

The nurse, her priorities first to aid patients and second to logic her way through it, hurries to retrieve Logan what he'd asked for, and helps him into it. "I'll go phone a doctor," the nurse says, already heading to the phone behind her desk.

"No," Logan protests from his new position in the chair. "I—I mean, you should probably go get my specific doctor, Dr. Connell. He'll know what's wrong."

The nurse once again is frowning, but Logan's earnestness has been perfected, and she succumbs, walking off down the hall to get the physician. Logan knows he's got precious little time, so once she's out of sight, he jumps out of the chair and runs over to the emergency room, awkwardly maneuvers Dean into the contraption, and without further ado, wheels the man towards the back entrance where they'd initially come in. He's fully aware he's broken a law or two, but Max's approval is more important to him at the moment.

Logan's nearly scared out of his skin when he looks up and is confronted with a very familiar, very livid brunette. And when he says scared, he means scared; he isn't proud enough to deny that. "Holy God, Max!" he exclaims. "You're gonna put _me _in the hospital!"

"I don't believe in God," Max says offhandedly. "And you're…" She trails off as she sees Dean, her face an odd heterogeneity of anger at Logan and worry for Dean. "What'd you do?"

"What'd _I_ do?" Logan protests. "Nothing! I just left the room for them to do the surgery thing, and the next moment the guy's convulsing!"

Max places her hands on her hips, a common stance for her. "And what'd they say was the cause?"

"Panic attack," Logan says, knowing Max's want of having every little detail is just a coping mechanism. "They don't know why. They wanted to do an EEG and some other crap to him, but I thought it prudent to get him out before they performed all sorts of tests on him and potentially find out some…unsavory things."

Max sighs. "Thanks, Logan," she says. "But the docs are kind of right—we should have an EEG done and maybe other stuff to possibly get an insight as to what the hell's going on with him."

"Yeah, he's reverting to his psycho self," Logan says before he can think it through.

His arm is wrenched around his back immediately, and Max is seething in his ear. "Don't," she whispers viciously. "Don't even."

Logan nods, and she releases him, making Logan wonder if he should check him_self_ into the clinic for shoulder surgery just in case. "We should get him out of here," he suggests.

"Yeah," Max agrees, her eyes flicking to the still down for the count Dean. "We anticipated this. I brought Shane, Damen, and Kalinda to help out. They're going to…requisition some medical equipment. You're going to drive Dean back to T.C.; Mole and Joshua are gonna meet you there. Alec wanted to come, but…I thought that might not be the best thing at the moment. Considering."

Max's face pauses on discomfort, but then neutralizes and she proceeds to make some hand signals in the shadows to Logan's right; three X-series emerge, and sneak soundlessly into the hospital. Max is about to go in herself when Logan puts his hand on her arm. He hadn't missed Max's explanation of Alec's whereabouts, but he saw the conflict in her eyes, and chooses to not—as has been his modus operandi as of late—mention it. "I appreciate your foresight," he says, "but Mole? Isn't he rather antagonistic towards Dean? I mean, he did clock him, right?"

Max laughs, smiling despite the grim circumstances. "You shoulda seen him," she says. "'Course he didn't say anything in front of T.C., but he volunteered for this. He was in the armory—where else?—and I talked to him; turns out, guy's got some sort of respect for Dean. Kind of like with Alec, come to think of it. It's great. I mean, Mole won't show it—you know how he is—but I think Dean's made it into his good graces, at least to an extent. Which is hard to do."

He shouldn't feel it, but Logan can't help the sting that grates him temporarily. Not that he necessarily lives to procure the lizard-man's approval, but still. Logan's been around the man for months upon months, and the guy hasn't liked Logan, no matter what. And yet Dean, who'd been more unconscious around Mole than conscious, had suddenly, inexplicably, gained the transhuman's respect.

It isn't even just that Logan's an Ordinary, either, like he'd thought. Dean's, after all, an Ordinary as well, and does Mole disregard him? Evidently not. Somehow, in a course of events that totally escapes Logan's high IQ, Dean's up with Alec (and isn't _that_ an enigma in and of itself) on Mole's shit list. Logan's not pleased with it all, and plans on figuring everything out. However, whatever his feelings, he has to be objective in this one instance. Dean's just another injured person, and realistically, Mole and Joshua are the two best people for the job of bringing him back through the tunnels. And Logan's going to do his own part damn well.

"Okay," he finally accedes. "I'll drive him. Then what do you want me to do? Drive back here to help you guys transfer the goods?"

Max apparently doesn't pick up on Logan's want to assist. "No, we've got a truck here that we can use. Maybe you can just try to find out some more info on Dean, if that's possible. Could help."

"I can help read the EEG—"

"We have Rade, Logan," Max disrupts. "Please. We've got to deal with our own _on_ our own right now."

And the sting is back in full force. Logan glimpses a moment, and reaches towards Max's hand that's still covered with her bike gloves. To his now near-depressing disappointment, instead of holding Logan's hand in hers, she shies away and wheels Dean towards Logan's car. He supposes he shouldn't be surprised when Max opens it, obviously somehow having manufactured a key without his knowledge. He can see she's straining to handle Dean with care, but Logan doesn't think she'd appreciate any offers he could give. So he simply gets in the driver's seat and shuts the door, waiting for Max to finish.

He can't resist glancing in the rearview mirror, however, only to see Max ever so briefly brush her fingers across Dean's cheek, like she's caressing an old friend. But, as always, Logan bites his tongue. He's rarely understood Max in matters of the heart, and if anything, Dean's place in it he'll never understand. He acknowledges that. (Sort of.)

Max closes the back door and comes around to the front, to speak through the open window. "Logan, I know you don't understand this," she says, her brown eyes solemn. _You've got that right_, Logan thinks cynically. "I'm not sure I completely do either. But I have to help Dean. I care about him, in spite of everything that's happened, or whatever Dean may have done in the past. You've just got to trust me on this. Please. He needs me. And I think we can help him through whatever demons are roiling around in his mind. Just—please, Logan."

It doesn't really placate him, but Logan's aware that Max is serving up her kind of truce, which means he has to masochistically sign on the dotted line. "Okay, Max," he replies without fanfare. "I'll talk to you soon. Good luck."

Max gives him a somewhat sad smile, and then vanishes into the dark, a mere blur as she slips into the hospital. Logan sighs, and then turns around to look at Dean, his face—so in turmoil yet still annoyingly handsome—twitching like it had. And Logan wonders if it's only the medical issue, or if Max was right and Dean really is suffering, and has been suffering, beneath that beautiful façade.

What scares Logan is that he fears he doesn't care as much as he thinks he ought. He shakes it off before he does something he regrets, though, and shoves the car into gear, Bessie's tires squealing as she peals out of the parking lot and heads towards the toxic haven.

* * *

"Mole like Sad Fella," Joshua observes as he and Mole sit by the manhole, waiting for Logan to show up with the precious cargo.

Mole grunts, glaring at the dog-man. "I don't like anyone," Mole objects, cocking and uncocking his twelve-gauge in boredom and irritation. "Let alone some pretty boy depressive."

Joshua shakes his large head, and Mole gets the exasperated feeling that he's in for some very unwanted canine psychoanalysis. "Sad Fella kinda Alec," Joshua chuckles. "Mole like Alec. Like Sad Fella."

Yep, psychobabble shit that Mole doesn't get. "That Winchester guy isn't like Alec," Mole objects. "I don't like _Alec_ either, mind you."

Joshua stares at his counterpart, expecting a better response. His expression doesn't change, just continues meaningfully.

"Stop that, or I'll _make_ you stop," Mole snaps, aiming his gun. Joshua stares. Mole sighs. "Fine. _Fine_. What do you want from me?"

Joshua smiles, his uneven teeth strangely unfrightening, like the rest of him. "Mole help Sad Fella. Mole helped Alec. Now help Alec's twin."

"Not a twin," Mole grumbles impatiently. "And what the hell makes you think _I_, of all people, can help this guy? He decked me, if you remember."

What Mole had initially somewhat agreed with about Joshua, his humanity and observational skills despite his ailed cocktail, now came back to bite him in the ass, and he wonders how exactly people dealt with this sort of thing. Give him a target, and Mole's your guy. But stick him in a situation where he's completely out of his element, out of his whole damn periodic table, and he's as clueless as a human child.

"Try Mole's best," says Joshua, paying no mind to Mole's affronted expression as he places his hand on the man's scaly shoulder. "Maybe Sad Fella listen."

"Okay, enough with the Fella thing," Mole snipes. "Alec, Max, Winchester, not that hard."

Joshua shakes his head again. "_Dean_," he corrects earnestly. "Winchester hurt people. Dean hurt by people."

"Fucking fortune cookie mumbo jumbo," Mole mutters, before standing up and stomping away to lean up against a pile of decaying crates away from Joshua. Which certainly does _not_ allow time for Joshua to actually sprout seeds of truth about Dean's condition in Mole's mind. 'Cause there's no way Mole's going to feel _sorry_ for the bastard. Hell no. Ever. Never ever.

Luckily for him, before his kernel of conscience can be left to its own devices, the squealing rumble of Logan's car echoes through the alley, and Mole's striding over before the vehicle is even turned off. Walking around the side, he yanks open the door, silently leaving Joshua to speak with Logan about everything that transpired and what would transpire.

But what Mole thought was the better job he's not so sure anymore. "Fuck," he says, seeing Dean's figure.

Ever since the guy had infiltrated all of their lives, Mole's been slightly caught off-guard, whatever he might say. And now, it's even worse. Mole hadn't seen Dean unconscious when he was first brought in; he'd been off intimidating some X6s or something. The only time he'd seen the guy was the fateful confrontation between himself and Dean, and later Dean and Alec. Sure, the guy had gotten a little of Mole's respect, but come on. In a city full of morose transgenics, some new blood who didn't seem to be afraid of any of them was bound to make a mark in Mole's record.

So seeing Dean like this makes Mole pause for a minute. Last time he'd seen Dean, the man had had his shoulder shot to hell, and yet was still cursing everyone and making off like he was just fine. Now, though…well, Mole's no medic, but he can see Dean's even more screwed than before. His shoulder looks like it was set right, but it's still bleeding profusely, staining the cheap fabric of Logan's car's seats, his skin is no longer the sun-browned color of being outside in non-Seattle climates, but rather pale as the countless death Mole's seen.

He's twitching like he's got electroshock going through him, even though Mole knows it's even worse than that, given the pained look on Dean's face. What's the most terrible, though, that Mole can see is Dean's eyes, Dean's hands. Before, Dean's eyes were hazel fury, emotionless and yet emotion-filled at the same time, adjusting to whatever new environment he was put in like a kaleidoscope. Now they're scrunched in the throes of what Mole can't picture; his hands are clenched into white-knuckled fists, but not the fists that pounded against Mole's face. They're fists of what are only used for staving off hurt in lieu of anesthetic, or of trying to not let anyone sense the feelings running through them. Dean's got it, and Mole's not sure what to do.

Mole wishes Dean were just another Ordinary that he could hate, just another Logan that he could dismiss as oblivious to the transgenics' plight, oblivious to what they're going through. And while Dean's as annoying to Mole as an Ordinary is, there's no way Mole can write Dean off as normal, as another of the human, faceless mass that hates Mole and his kind. There's something different about Dean, and although Mole can't quite point it out, he knows it like he knows he's part reptile.

It's not so much the horrible condition Mole assesses Dean's in that makes him want to give the guy a second chance. It's the possibility that maybe there really is an Ordinary in the world who could comprehend the extent of the transgenics' problems, who's been through the hell that they had. And if what he's overheard of Max's conversations is true, well, maybe even more hell. That's enough for Mole.

Fully intending to deny any accusations that he's going soft, he picks up Dean with little effort, making sure to watch the guy's head—hell if he knows if Dean has a concussion—and grimacing but ignoring the fact that Dean's blood is starting to stain his shirt. It's not so much that he's overprotective about fashion; rather, T.C. isn't exactly overflowing with clothing choices. In fact, Mole's got about two shirts to his arsenal, and this is one of them.

"You got this, Dog Boy?" Mole asks gruffly, referring to getting the debrief from Logan. From the looks of it, Joshua and he would be a while. Mole's pretty positive the process would go faster if it were with him—owing to that Logan doesn't like him very much—but on the other hand, Joshua walking in with an unconscious and bleeding Dean would be a lot more likely to cause questions. Whereas with Mole, not only do people generally just not want to talk to him, but they'd probably just figure that Mole had given Dean a Talking-To, and Max had commanded him to bring him in to Rade. Win-win, the way Mole sees it.

He makes quick time in the tunnels, his thick, scaly skin repelling most of the sensations of the sewer grime, and his superior strength allowing Dean to be virtually unmoved throughout the trip. The only difficulty, actually, is about three quarters of the way through, when Dean gives an especially violent shudder, accompanied by a loud mumbling, only the tone of pure whimpering up for deciphering. Mole crunches down on his cigar a little tighter—he _won't_ feel anything but irritation for Dean,goddamn it!—but keeps going, in the back of his mind wondering if Rade would actually be able to patch him up. He'd seen the feisty woman work near miracles, but he has a bad feeling a lot of this would be up to Dean.

A couple minutes later sees Mole and Dean arriving at the other end of the tunnel, the manhole cover already open, and Rade waiting at the top with her arms folded across her breasts, conserving the heat from her standard green field jacket.

Her expression akin to as if she'd been sucking on a particularly sour lemon, a kind of revulsion at the fact that she's being called on in the middle of the night to treat an Ordinary. An Ordinary who she'd seen attack both Max and Alec, insult her people, and then indirectly cause Max to be blind to all he'd done, as well as neglect her duties for T.C. Mole's only guess as to why Rade is actually there is because Max hadn't told her it's Dean she'd be attending.

"Oh, come _on_," she gripes, impatiently brushing a piece of hair out of her eyes. "I'm supposed to treat _him_?" Just because she'd already inspected Dean earlier and didn't completely hate the man doesn't mean she wants to have anything more to do with him. Dean can't change what he is, after all: one of _Them_.

Disbelieving of what he's about to say, Mole sighs. "The guy needs your help, Rade," he says with a wince of annoyance. "Pretend he's one of us, if you want. Just check him over, will ya?"

Still perturbed, Rade humors him, putting her fingers to the pulse point on Dean's slightly feverish neck, mentally calculating his heart rate, and then feeling around his now not dislocated shoulder, despite herself becoming unsatisfied as her hand comes away covered in Dean's blood—his plain, unenhanced blood. Glancing at Dean's expression and taking in his tight, pained face, she makes up her mind, giving into her stubbornness.

"Follow me," she says brusquely. Completely succumbing, she finishes, "And bring Dean with you. I'm gonna fix his pretty little ass up."


	20. Chapter XIX: Requiem for a Paradise Lost

A/N: Same stuff applies as in the first chapter. Oh, and unfortunately I neither _Supernatural_ nor _Dark Angel_. Just this.

A/N part two: Specific episodes of _Supernatural_ mentioned are: "Pilot." Specific episodes of _Dark Angel_ mentioned are: none.

* * *

**Of Desire and the Status Quo**

_**Chapter XIX: Requiem for a Paradise Lost

* * *

**_

"No way that fucking just happened," Shane remarks, glancing behind him through the truck's rear window into the very unpopulated-by-hospital-security-wanting-to-arrest-slash-kill-them darkness.

Max rolls her eyes from the front passenger seat, used to the X6's antics. "For the fifth time, it _did _happen," she sighs, withholding her own grin. Even she has to admit they were pretty Jedi about it all. Breaking into a hospital and stealing a good chunk of their equipment required _skill_. "Now shut up and study the damn thing. Rade will need it A.S.A.P."

"And what is this for again?" Damen—the youngest of the three—pipes up from the backseat. "I mean, who is this guy that we're bending over backwards for? What's even his _name_?"

Max clears her throat, uncomfortable with even the preliminary questions. She doesn't blame them, given that the majority of T.C. knows nothing about Dean, but it doesn't mean she's cool with discussing it. "His name's Dean Winchester," she answers quietly. "He's…a friend."

"Dean Winchester?" Kalinda asks from next to Damen. "I've never heard of him before. What is he, another X5? Transhuman?"

Max's imagination barrages her with the comical image of a part-salamander Dean, but she quickly squashes it. "No, he's an Ordinary," she says, choosing to get the bomb over with.

"What the hell?" Damen snaps indignantly, leaning forward so he's between Max and Shane's seats. "An _Ordinary_? Don't we got enough of those lemmings hanging around?"

Her hands gripping the steering wheel tighter, Max purses her lips, simultaneously thinking that she should have realized this would be their reaction. Hell, it would've been hers, too, had it not been for the whole nightmare-looks-like-Alec-is-possibly-a-serial-killer thing.

"Look, he's kind of like Logan, I guess," Max answers, not really believing herself. There's beginnings of an outcry from the backseat, which prompts her to surge forward. "_As in_, he's down with what transgenics are, and he doesn't care." _More like he doesn't care about anything, but they don't need to know that_, Max thinks. "He'll only be here for a while—he got tortured by White and whoever else, and Rade needs this stuff to fix him up. So stop complaining, all of you."

"Why would White want some random Ordinary?" Shane asks, genuinely curious.

She shrugs, wracking her brain for a lie. "He's…I don't know," she finally settles, going for the psycho card: "Who the hell knows what goes through White's mind?"

"True that," Damen finally agrees, relaxing back into his chair as much as he can, watching the few working lights of downtown speed by.

* * *

Whatever ill feelings or prejudice Rade may have felt about Dean vanishes as soon as he's carried into the medical bay. She's always been an expert at compartmentalizing, and at the moment, she doesn't see the convoluted, _Memento_-esque mess that surrounds the man, but rather someone whose body and mind are at their wits' end and in need of desperate repair. And if Rade's the only one who can possibly fix them—and, well, she is—then by God, she's going to do it.

As two X6s she vaguely remembers as Damen and Shane set Dean on the gurney (and none too lightly, which earns them a black glare), she doesn't skip a beat in hooking up the EEG, EKG, and vitals monitor, gluing the electrodes to Dean's scalp and skin with precision efficiency. She tells the X's they should leave—she prefers to, when the person's not, say, bleeding out, work alone—pulls over a stool and sits, simply observing.

Because regardless of the despising exterior she'd exuded in terms of Dean, she's actually damn curious. Not, unlike ninety-nine percent of those in the know in T.C., about Dean's possible Ordinary past as a cold-blooded killer, and not even that he looks like a future Alec. No. What Rade's more interested in is less surface, and more hardwire. That is, she wants to know what makes Dean so drastically different in behaviors, what caused his abrupt shift in perception and equilibrium.

She knows what it's not. She's already idly ran past the normal issues; granted, she'd had to work a little to recall the specifics about the problems associated with Ordinaries as opposed to just Manticore's, but she's gone through them nonetheless. It's not schizophrenia, which was the most likely culprit: sure, Dean'd showed pretty much the dissertation of symptoms for the disease, but there's the _tiny_ caveat of that, especially in conjunction with what Max had told her, it seemed to be triggered by only two particular things. Hell, they'd said; Hell, and apparently his brother, Sam.

What she's finally decided on, albeit not quite as definitively as she'd like, is that Dean's in some kind of dual functioning state. The main one being where he appears normal enough, smartass enough, hard-as-nails enough, acting just like, well, Alec. The other, however, being assaulted with completely unrepressed, raw, white-hot, nerve-splitting memories. Or fears. Either way, Rade knows _something_ happened to this kid—and okay, Dean's probably a few years older than Rade herself, but the way he looks now ages him down at least a decade—and that something is of what Rade wants to get to the barebones reason. And, Heaven help her, she wants to put him back together again.

So she watches Dean, occasionally glancing to the EEG waves, which as yet haven't shown anything remarkably anomalous; and she watches his vitals, which as yet haven't strayed too far out of the normal range; and she watches his shoulder, whose bleeding had been stemmed owing to the sizable amount of gauze and bandages wrapped around it, but she knows it still hasn't been fully repaired; and she watches Dean's face, each and every muscle tick and spasm branding itself into her brain. She wants to miss absolutely nothing, and she won't.

She's almost to the point of worrying that Dean's neural activity is a little _too_ steady, when suddenly the brainwaves spike, and Dean's eyes open, his pupils dilating in the overhead lights. Rade's immediately up, bracing herself in case Dean decides to espouse his inner assassin again and put _her_ in the hospital. But he doesn't, to her relief; he just stays in the same position, save for maybe hunching in a little on himself.

Now that he's awake, though, to Rade's eyes he looks abnormal with the wires cemented to his head, the leads connected to his bare chest that relay his heartbeats to the multiparameter monitor. So, attempting to pretext as complete neutrality—she'd found that patients were a lot like horses, in that they could be just as skittish, and just as likely to kick you in the teeth, so to speak. She carefully peels off the metal disks, the residual glue slicking Dean's already sweat-dampened hair, and drops them in a spare tray, before leaning against the side of the cold slab on which Dean lies.

"Dean," Rade tests out, feeling the need to near-whisper, even though rationally, she knows it's totally pointless. "Dean, can you hear me?"

Dean flicks his eyes over dead center to Rade's, and she mentally checks off one of the signs that Dean's in his conscious mind. "I know you," he rasps, the sound a perfect archetype of a scoured trachea.

"Yeah, my name is Rade," she answers calmly, determined not to freak him out. (She doesn't fail to be aware of the oddity of the situation, considering the circumstances.) "I stitched you up a while ago. Guess I'm here to do it again."

Attempting to laugh, Dean just ends up coughing, and leans over to wait it out. Spitting a mouthful of blood for which Rade's entirely too unnerved with his lack of discomfort, Dean regains his previous supine position with a miniscule groan. It all elicits an unhappy grimace from Rade, who, in her experience, has never found it a _good _sign when someone starts producing blood from where it's most definitely not supposed to be. But she doesn't say anything.

She leaves that to Dean. "Really," Dean says, succeeding in a chuckle this time. "I'm glad that electro-bomb thing didn't wipe out all the hot ones after all."

Rade's mouth twitches, and she wants to believe this is simply Dean devolving into a Florence Nightingale effect thing, but, given to whom he looks remarkably similar…she doubts it. "All right, stud, listen up," she snaps, gridlocking her determination. "You got some crossed wires up in that pretty little brain of yours that really shouldn't be crossing, and I need to know why. You went in for some garden-variety shoulder surgery, and next thing you get dragged in here with the only explanation given to me that you started seizing like an epileptic?

"You stabbed a doctor with a hypodermic filled to the nines with anticonvulsants—you could've killed him. No one knows enough about your damn self to come up with any reasonable answers, and most of Terminal City's either scared of you or pissed off. Start giving me answers, Dean fucking Winchester, or I'll make you give them to me, and take my word for it: you don't want that to happen."

"I knocked out some doc with a needle and avoided getting jabbed with one, too?" Dean asks in shock. "Damn, I wish I remembered that."

Rade shuts her eyes for a minute, collecting herself. "So much for my hope that you'd be more mature than Alec," she mutters ruefully.

When she opens her eyes again to look at Dean, she sees his face has lost the little bit of humor it'd garnered, the dimples that had been previously only akin to the aforementioned X5 appearing as Dean's lips purse in discontent. "What's with all that crap?" Dean asks tiredly. "I've been confused with the dude ever since I got dumped here, not to mention he looks like me when I was, like, nineteen. What the ever-loving hell?"

He winces at what only he knows is the irony of his words, but Rade gets the sense it's not out of pain. "Okay, then," Rade says, offering the proverbial olive branch. "I'll make you a deal. I tell you all about Seattle's own little slice of squalor, you tell me what slasher film is playing in your head."

Dean starts to clam up, Rade can literally see it, but then his muscles relax the minutest degree, and he nods. "Just—I don't think you'd believe most of what I'd say," Dean claims darkly, even though Zero had been up for at least listening. But Zero was a lost kid…Rade doesn't seem to be.

It's Rade's turn to chortle, and she gets up to wet a swatch of towel, handing it to Dean to rub off the hardening gel from the electrodes. "I was made in a glass tube in a genetics lab," she says matter-of-factly, even though it's an aspect Dean already knows. "What could you _possibly_ say that's out of my belief?"

Dean shakes his head, sitting up with a cringe (and this one Rade knows to attribute to pain) and running the rag through his hair. "Lady, let's just say that _The Omen_ and _Hellraiser_ ain't too far off. But you first."

Rade doesn't know the films that Dean's referring to—Manticore wasn't huge on Friday Movie Night, and Rade wasn't a field agent so she doesn't have much knowledge on pop culture, especially pre-Pulse—but from the way their titles sound, and the gallows humor in Dean's voice, Rade's certain she's not going to like the upcoming conversation. But she's not one to be deterred at the sign of difficulty, and so she merely pulls over the stool she'd been sitting on earlier, looks Dean in the eye, and shrugs. It's her turn.

"What do you know about spliced and recombinant DNA?"

* * *

When Logan finally returns to Sandeman's house—there was some sector checkpoint ordeal that caused a backup a block long—he gets out of his car, only to see a faint blue glow from between the blinds, and is immediately on edge, which, given the annoyance he'd just come from, didn't take much. Withdrawing the nine-millimeter that he'd learned to carry from the glove compartment, he sidles up the stairs, really wishing this night would just end already. In a beat, Logan slams open the door, and points the handgun to his computer terminals, which would be the only source of the light.

It takes him a second or two, but in the almost nonexistent luminance, he recognizes the face and lowers the gun. "Max?" he asks incredulously, flipping on the overhead bulb. "What are you doing here?"

Max looks up at him, thoroughly unperturbed with Logan's entrance and weapon. Though, judging from the bags under her eyes and the solemn expression, it could just be fatigue. "I'm trying to look for some more stuff that could help on Dean."

"In the dark?"

"Logan, I got cat vision. Might as well be daytime for me."

"Yeah, yeah," Logan gripes petulantly, walking over to look at the screens. "So did you find anything?"

Max sighs deeply, and hands Logan a few meager pieces of paper. "Maybe," she answers despondently. "But I can't be sure. Mainly it's just…_weird_."

Logan snorts, glancing up from the papers to look at Max. "You're just _now_ realizing that?" he questions in disbelief. "How is this whole thing not a million kinds of crazy?"

"No. I mean, yeah, I know it is," Max fumbles, "but it's just—there's no records about him. Not anything past the cops' ones, anyway. It's like he doesn't exist." She points to the topmost paper in Logan's hand and elaborates, "That's his birth certificate, dated '79 from Kansas, to Mary and John Winchester. It's the only info I could find on Dean; there's nothing, absolutely nothing, after that."

"But?" Logan asks, predicting more.

"I found some on Sam," Max reports, rearranging the papers in Logan's hands. "Apparently he went to Stanford University, down in California, and they kept their hardcopies of student files. He was pre-law, it looks like, but then in September of 2005, he disappears from the records, too. The only other mention I found, and this is the weird part, is of a massive fire in his apartment around the same time he disappeared. There was a fatality, his girlfriend, Jessica Moore."

Logan glances up at her, intrigued. And also a little impressed that Max was able to dredge up _something_. "The weirdest bit is the source of the fire, and the condition of the burnout; I hacked into the Palo Alto Fire Department files, and found the full report. They obviously were making the evidence fit into an electrical shortage or whatever, but from what I could figure out, it looked like the fire started on the _ceiling_, which was also where parts of Jessica's remains were located."

Logan's brow creases as he scans through the scraps of evidence Max had discovered. She was right about the fire thing, he can see that from some crime scene photos. "Okay, you're right. That doesn't make any sense," Logan agrees. "Any idea what could cause this kind of thing?"

"Not one," Max answers. "And I think it's even stranger that Sam would just _vanish_ after his longtime girlfriend died in their apartment inferno. I mean, what's up with that?"

"I don't know," Logan says, feeling like it's his mantra as of late. No pain, no gain, he supposes miserably. Hoping the condition in which he'd last seen Dean wasn't as bad as he'd thought, he continues, "All right…so, has Rade given you a time when she'll be done with Dean?"

Max shakes her head. "She's still got him under lockdown," she relays. "The way she looked, though, I think it'll be a while. And even if Rade were done, do you really think Dean would let us talk to him? He's been more tight-lipped than anyone I've ever seen." Suddenly, she rounds on Logan, who internally winces in anticipation. "Isn't there some sort of psychological thing where all this repression or refusal to share comes out anyway?"

Logan laughs humorlessly. "Normally, I think so," he replies, though honestly, he's not anything close to a psychologist, so hell if he knows. "But seriously, Max. Has there been one shred of proof that Dean's a normal human being? The guy's got nothing to lose, which makes it pretty hard to be one up on him." He waits a beat, before throwing it out there, "Maybe there's something we can find that'll entice him to tell us something? At the very least, about the fire?"

"Like what?" Max retorts. "The _only_ thing we could find that might make a difference would be his brother. And we're no closer to that now than we were days ago. Might 's well face it. We're not going to locate Sam, and we're not going to get anything else out of Dean."

"Well, you've got to hand it to them, I guess," Logan remarks with a certain amount of unfortunate praise. "I mean, what, over twenty-five years of hiding and they've pretty much got no personal info? That's pretty impressive."

"Why don't you just write them a fan letter," Max wits. Then she pauses, with a thought that Logan can see even she's not certain on. "What if we can figure out where _Dean's_ been? By all accounts, he should be with Sam, right? Or at least look like he's his real age according to the police files? There's something strange here, at best. Maybe if we can tell him we know what happened, that we understand, he'll tell us something."

Logan winces, not wanting to poke holes in Max's argument. "Sounds great. But what exactly do we understand?"

Perturbed, Max elaborates, "Fine, cynic. Dean's given us some clues, hasn't he? And with the articles about the fire…"

"Max!" Logan snaps, needing her to acknowledge the preposterousness of her ideas. "All Dean's been moaning about is, what, Hell? Not wanting Sam to be taken? He's twitchier than a recovering alcoholic in a bar! All of what he's said is just crazy psychobabble, it means nothing. Perhaps to him it does, but it's just nonsense."

But Max wouldn't be Max if she didn't stick to her guns, and true to form, she folds her arms across her chest, standing up defensively. "What if it isn't nonsense?" she says solidly, tilting her chin up. "How do we know it's not legit?"

Logan can't do anything but stare, agape at what Max is saying. He hadn't thought neurological diseases were contagious, but… "Hell, Max? Dean wasn't muttering about figurative Hell, like most of us do. He was thinking it's an actual place! That _he_ went to? How in any sense is that not nine kinds of insane?"

Upset and incensed now, Max snatches the papers from Logan's hands, not caring if she gave him a paper cut. "You know as well as I do that there are things possible that people haven't thought were. I'm living proof of that. Just because Dean's saying things that don't necessarily appeal to our reasoning doesn't mean they're not true. If it's a lead that could even possibly go somewhere, we've got to take it."

"Max…"

"Fine!" she exclaims, shrugging on her leather jacket and fastening her gloves around her hands. "I'll just bring these to Dix. Maybe he can find something. I'll talk to you later, Logan."

She's out the door before Logan's brain can fathom the rationale behind Max's words, and he stares at the air she'd vacated with just as much incredulity. He's always admired Max's stick-to-it-ness, but now, he's thinking her latest venture might be done more out of spite than anything else. How can she seriously believe that Dean's been spouting truths? _Hell_? It's such an abstract idea. Logan's pretty sure even priests, who believe in that kind of stuff, don't actually put stock in the location so much as a threat to those who commit sins and the like. And here Max is taking Dean's word on _faith_. To a guy she hardly knows, and whose actions have only made his case worse for him.

Logan would go to the end of the world and back for Max, but with this, she's reached the line and quickstepped over it jauntily. Just because he cares almost too much for Max doesn't mean that he owes Dean jack squat. If Max wants to go on a goose chase for a fictional destination straight out of Dante, he'll leave her to it. Him, he's going to…well, he's not quite sure yet, but it certainly isn't going to include Hell or Dean Winchester.

* * *

"So let me get this straight," Dean says slowly, running a roughened hand over his face. Staring at Rade, who had just finished her explanation of Manticore and Terminal City, he clarifies, "You guys were manufactured, forced against your will to become soldiers who kill or else are killed, were experimented upon, escaped, and started your own crappy city thing? You're right—that's pretty hard to believe."

Rade sighs, and kind of wants to smack Dean around a little, but given his current state as well as hers as a respectable medic, she merely remains sitting with her legs crisscrossed opposite Dean on the metal table. "It's all just science, Dean," she responds, telling herself she's not defending Manticore. "I mean, state-of-the-art science, but it's not extraterrestrial." At Dean's still dubious look—it's all too, despite what Rade had said, _X-Files_ for him—Rade retorts, "Fine. What do you got, then?"

She almost expects Dean to just renege on his deal, to determine he's not up for explaining after all; and, considering all that she's seen and heard of him, she wouldn't be surprised. But Dean also hasn't struck her as the kind of guy to back down in the face of hardship, even if it's extremely painful. And, to her relief and curiosity, Dean begins.

"I'm a hunter," he starts. "I mean, I guess I _was_ a hunter." Rade suspends her questioning on that last fact; Dean sure as hell doesn't _look_ like the undead to her. And he also doesn't seem like the guy to wait patiently just to shoot a deer.

"A hunter of what, exactly?" Rade asks.

Dean stalls, the cautious part of his mind wondering why in the world he's about to tell some…_thing_…about his past. He doesn't even know her, not really, and she's actually pretty damn abrasive. Sure, she's not for the coddling like Max or Cindy seemed to be, but still. That doesn't mean he owes her something. Especially not what's happened to him; he's not sure he'll ever be able to tell anyone about _that_. Rade can preach her sob story all she wants to him, but Dean knows it's freakin' translucent in comparison to his. And yet, if he can tell her the _other_ parts of his still unsavory past, maybe it'll get him an ally in this whole mess.

"Demons," Dean answers after a while, the words feeling like sick acid on his tongue as flashbacks flare rapid fire through his mind. "Demons, ghosts, tulpas, shapeshifters, a whole host of other supernatural bottom feeders."

Rade stares blankly at him, seriously pondering if she should have reconsidered the possibility of Dean having a few screws loose. She's willing to accept a lot, but this is out of her job description. "Look, if you're going to lie, at least make it _convincing_," Rade snaps, about two seconds away from getting off the table, finding the bottle of lorazepam and doping Dean up again.

"I'm not lying!" Dean protests violently, his eyes blazing the same sentiments. "Jesus, even you—what did you call yourselves?—_transgenics_ don't think I'm telling the truth. Well, you're wrong. All of you are."

Whether Rade trusts him or not (and, to be honest, she's leaning towards not), she's going to humor him. If nothing else than to, well, sate her curiosity. It's not every day you meet someone who proclaims he fought demons. Then she remembers something. "Wait, is that what you were talking about when you accused Alec of being a shapeshifter?" she asks. "With the silver knife thing?"

Dean nods his head despondently. "Yeah, it was," he answers. "I was hoping that he was one, actually. Which says a lot, considering I hate the damn things more than almost all the lower-level bastards out there. One screwed up my life, got me tracked for multiple murders—it's not like I wanted to let that happen again. But I guess he's not a shapeshifter, whatever that means."

"So you're saying that the crimes you committed—Max told me—weren't your fault? It was all some…er…shapeshifter?" The word sounds alien in her mouth, but she's fighting through it.

"Well, not all of them," Dean answers awkwardly. "But most of the killing was necessary. You know, salting and burning, changelings, that kind of thing."

"I don't know," Rade dissents, disliking the phrase. "This is all too whacked."

Dean shrugs, then instantly regrets it, putting a hand to his shoulder. "I've heard that one before," he grinds out against the pain. Rade gets up and walks over to the group of medicine bottles, grabbing the morphine and beginning to draw some out. "Knock it off," Dean snaps, halting her. "I'm not an _invalid_. I've had a hell of a lot more pain than this. And besides, morphine slows me down."

"You think you're going to be fighting something?" Rade replies caustically, unable to imagine Dean coming to blows with his shoulder, even if it is back in its socket. "Not on my watch, Winchester."

Dean smirks and starts to say something, which Rade's just about positive wouldn't be acceptable for younger audiences, when the doors to the medical wing are burst open. "Hey!" Rade snaps, turning her attention there. "What happened to 'you disturb me I put you in an Ordinary hospital myself'?"

"Rade," says Dalton, his face no longer looking impish, but rather distressed. He spares a glance to Dean, and although his eyes nearly bug out of his head—it's obvious he can tell it's not Alec, but is Alec at the same time; Dean, of course, merely stares—he doesn't have time to dwell before he reveals a transhuman behind him, struggling to hold up a very familiar monocled brethren.

"What's going on?" Rade demands, feeling her face flush white as she sees Dix's bloodied and scraped skin, and obviously broken legs. "What the fuck just happened, Dalton? Answer me!"

"We don't know!" Dalton cries, his words echoing only truth. "I mean, one minute everything's fine, he's just typing away, and the next there's this explosion and Dix is like this!"

Rade's mind is full of equally imperishable questions, one of them being how she didn't hear a freakin' _explosion_. She voices just that. Dalton simply looks at her, and she gets it. "The doors, they're soundproof," Rade speaks, knowing the heavy steel doors, left over from the biotech lab before, blocked out most sounds. Rade most often kept them open except in times of desperation—in this case, Dean—which would explain her lack of noticing something blowing up. Some_one_, rather.

Dean hops off the table, holding his injured arm to his side, and walks over to the healthy transhuman, who obviously wasn't built for strength. Rade assumes the others are taking care of the explosion aftermath, the smoke from which she can smell just from the brief period the doors were open.

"Take five, pal," Dean commands, his rough voice still intimidating. Bending down, he clenches his jaw and grits his teeth, before putting one arm under Dix's legs, and the other underneath his head.

He starts to lift Dix, Rade temporarily paralyzed, and he gets him off of the ground, before his mask of indifference falls with the sheer pain of an unrepaired torn rotator cuff and barely-reset shoulder takes the best of him. His bad arm shakes, fresh blood welling and waterfalling from his wound, but right as he starts to drop Dix not of his own accord, Dalton blurs over and takes up the slack, regarding Dean with an entirely different light.

They manage to set Dix down on the gurney Dean had previously occupied, the latter falling against the wall and then sliding down, injury leaching all the strength and color out of him. Rade, out of her haze, comes to and registered what had occurred. "Winchester!" she yells, staring down at Dean like an avenging angel. "What the hell are you doing? You probably just fucked up that damn shoulder all over again!"

"Rade," Dalton intervenes, gesturing helplessly to Dix's body. "Please."

Still seething, but knowing her priorities, and knowing whose damage is worse, she shoos Dean and Dalton out of the immediate vicinity, then turns around and starts taking stock of Dix, wishing she didn't know on whom she'd be operating. For Dean's part, he presses against the wall like it can take away the hurt, his eyes shut tight against the un-morphined shoulder and regretting that shot of analgesic he'd refused. Not that, again, he'd not had worse, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt like a bitch on the warpath.

"Dude," Dalton says after a few moments, coming to sit against the wall by Dean. He's still floored by the whole thing, unable to believe Dean's, you know, _real_, but for the immediacy, he's seeing past that. "You're _badass_."

Through his white veil of agony, Dean manages a breathy chuckle. "And you're a wimp, kid," he retorts, without knowing even to whom he's talking.

Dalton takes offense that he knows is irrational, his manly pride taking a fighting stance. "Right back at you. Crying over a _rotator cuff_."

That gets Dean's attention, and in an instant, his eyes are open, green eyes fixed on Dalton's brown. "Oh, don't even _start_ with me, half-pint," Dean retorts, glancing down at his arm, the top of which is completely coated in red, and running in rivulets down his forearm. "Fan-fucking-tastic," he mutters.

Dalton peers at Dean suspiciously. "No, seriously," he counters slowly. "That really shouldn't be a bad injury. You should be fine, blood congealing…what generation are you? Can't be X5…"

"Generation of bad hair and the gods of Metallica," Dean smiles in response.

Dalton, of course, misses the allusion entirely. "Gods of lustered alloys?" he asks, completely lost.

Raising an eyebrow, Dean seems to remember that none of the people, extremely unfortunately, even know who Metallica is, let alone the other rock cornerstones the likes of AC/DC, Nirvana, Black Sabbath, and all the rest. "Rock, man," Dean corrects. "Classic rock bands. You guys are seriously in the dark about good music."

Finally, Dalton's over-intelligent brain allows a possibility to come forth. "Wait a second…" he starts, giving Dean's fit, but internally broken, body a once-over. "Are you an Ordinary?"

"Hey, in no freakin' reality am I _ordinary_," Dean gripes sulkily. "But to you freaks of nature, I guess that's what you call normal humans."

Dalton forgives Dean's retort, in favor of reeling over this new information. "So…what relation are you to Alec, then? I mean, you—"

"—look just like him, yeah, I got the picture," Dean finishes in a respectable amount of resentment. "I don't know. I bet you guys are all over that. Or at least that chick and her white supremacist are."

Unable to hold back a snort of full laughter—despite the dire situation that's going on right inside the doors to their left—and Dean looks a little taken aback at Dalton's favorable reaction. "You're like…the first Ordinary ever to have that view of the guy."

This is news to Dean, who, the moment he'd seen Logan, really didn't like him. Something about the aura of preeminence that imbued the guy's entire being just grated on Dean's core values. If he hated _Sam's_ college persona, there was no chance he'd like Logan's twenty-four/seven persona of the same brand.

"If you don't mind, kid—"

"Dalton."

"Whatever. If you don't mind, I'd like to suffer in peace," Dean declares, kind of wanting that towel back to sop up all the excess blood pooling on his skin. "It's easier to hum 'Kashmir' without pipsqueak chatter."

If Dalton's irked by Dean's snubbing, he doesn't show it. Most likely owing to the occasional rapid-fire mood changes that Alec had. He's also positive that Dean's not referring to the area between India and Pakistan when he says "Kashmir," and he assumes it's some song or something, but he's not going to check that with Dean. He can see when a soldier's trying to deal with pain, and Dean reminds Dalton of a soldier (or at least as much as any of the rest of them do), so Dalton understands. He's had, after all, his own fair share of wounds.

That doesn't mean, though, that he can't offer a little assistance. Taking off his overshirt, he hands it to Dean. Dean opens his eyes and regards Dalton for a second before accepting the sacrifice, and puts it on his shoulder, the cloth absorbing the red, viscous fluid. Dean doesn't say anything to Dalton, but Dalton's seen the look of relative gratitude in Alec's eyes more than once to know that Dean _is_ grateful.

Granted, he's still confused as hell as to who Dean is, and what his connection to Alec happens to be, but there's more important things at stake. He just hopes that Dix isn't out of commission indefinitely. Now that the event has actually sunk in, and Dalton knows what's going on behind closed doors as well as in the command center, his stomach gives a roll of dread.


	21. Chapter XX: Unlikely Heroes

A/N: Same stuff applies as in the first chapter. Oh, and unfortunately I neither own _Supernatural_ nor _Dark Angel_. Just this.

A/N part two: Shameless pimping (which is unrelated to this story): I wrote an article on how I believe Dean is Michael and how canon supports it, so if you happen to want to read it, that'd be awesome. It be here: http://metamorphagi(dot)livejournal(dot)com/15098(dot)html. Though I've gotten a hint that it may need some additions upon culmination of tonight's episode, so if you want to check back later tonight or tomorrow to see if it's been altered, it'd probably be to your benefit. Well, mine, because you'd be reading it. =) Holy lengthy plug, Batman!

A/N part three: Specific episodes of _Supernatural_ mentioned are: none. Specific episodes of _Dark Angel_ mentioned are: none.

* * *

**Of Desire and the Status Quo**

_**Chapter XX: Unlikely Heroes

* * *

**_

As Max leaves Logan's place and gets on the road, the wind calming her nerves, she begins to feel guilty in a way about her behavior. She's still adamant that Logan had given up too early, that his prejudice towards Alec leached into his lack of desire to help Dean and figure out the whole deal, but she supposes she didn't have to be so confrontational about it.

She could have, maybe, tried to convince Logan that looking more into Dean could be beneficial by more reasonable ways, talking it through instead of jumping straight to conclusions. That's not to say she completely regrets her actions, but she probably could've chosen a different tack.

Well, that's all moot now, she contemplates. And she was completely serious when she'd told Logan she was going to continue the Dean researching on her own, even if it meant she'd have to include more people in the loop, when really, she'd wanted to keep it as much on the down low as possible. Wanted to find out herself what Dean's past really was and where he came from, then decide what to do with it and not risk it leaking out, causing a whole new rumor mill to start. The residents of T.C. are already suspicious enough of Dean—and now wondering about Alec, the second on the command food chain, isn't _that_ just peachy—without having some presumption spread throughout.

But what choice, really, does she have? By herself, she's not nearly adept enough to figure stuff out. Sure, she'd found the bits about the fire and Sam's girlfriend, but that was virtually a dead end, not leading to anything of further use. She needs someone else, and if she can't have Logan's help, Dix is the next best thing without going for outside, and therefore sketchier, assistance.

She just wishes, above all, that Dean would talk to her. To somebody. She's all for the keeping things close to the vest—she'd depended on it for ten years—but this is getting ridiculous. Dean hasn't given them _anything_. Just sarcasm and stonewalling. Even Alec was more forthcoming about his life. And, out of everyone, she'd judged him as having just about the hardest.

So, either Dean might as well be a damn CIA agent, or his life was actually worse. And if it were the latter…what kind of hell had he gone through? Of course, as far as she'd told Logan, and honestly does intend to try to lend credence to, Dean actually _did_ go through _Hell_.

That all being said, she does know that Dix is trustworthy. She wouldn't have let him be the forerunner of all T.C.'s electronics and communications if he weren't. It's that notion that settles her down a little, makes her see straight, so to speak. She knows Dix will be professional about this, she does. And she knows that, if she tells (okay, threatens, if it comes to that) Dix to not inform anyone else, he won't.

By the time Max reaches the gates of Terminal City, she's considerably more levelheaded, which in her experience, has always been a good thing. But, as she should have expected, the stasis is not to last. No sooner does she hop off her bike and put down the kickstand, than she's nearly bowled over by Kalinda, one of the X's who had gone with her on the hospital raid, the blonde looking almost feverish with anxiety.

"What is it, Kali? Is Dean okay?" she asks, fearing the worst.

"Who?" Kalinda questions. "Oh. The sick dude. I dunno. But it's—it's Dix."

Max's worry ups a notch…or twelve. "Is something wrong?" _Okay, stupid question, Max_, she rolls her eyes at herself internally.

"Rade's taking care of him," Kalinda answers coldly, both women knowing the severity of the words. "Over your precious _Ordinary_."

Max snarls, taking a step towards the younger transgenic. "Don't you even think of bringing him into this, like it's his fault."

The look in Kalinda's eyes is mutinous, but Max blurs away before Kalinda can tell her, in no uncertain terms, what's really on her mind.

* * *

Max doesn't know what she's expecting as she enters Command, but it sure as hell isn't stillness. She'd expected…she doesn't know, organized chaos? People scattering to help their fallen comrade, to abandon their posts to assist in any way they can. But apparently, as she finds out, her notion is romanticized. There aren't any more people in the room than usual, but it takes her a second to realize that they _aren't_ at their posts.

They're not helping Dix, they're…cleaning up? She walks further in, and when she gets a full view of the computer terminal platform, her mouth drops open, aghast. It's a war zone, at least that's what it resembles, the salvaged electronics either shrapnel or melted and disfigured. There are remains of two chairs, and most of the railing is intact, but otherwise, there might as well be napalm in the air.

"What…?" she manages, taking in the debris, the shadow on the cement from the explosion, the localized incendiary.

Mole comes up to her, the lizard-man still with a cigar in his mouth, but his surly expression changed into a rarely-seen remorseful and grave one. "Some kind of bomb, we think," Mole tells her, and thanks very much she figured _that_ one out. "Just…just blew up, caught Dix."

"He's not…" Max can't say it. She _won't_ say it. There's no way Dix is dead, he just can't be.

"He ain't dead," Mole says, and a small part of her sighs in relief. "But he ain't good, either. One of us and Dalton brought him to Rade, we're still waiting to see what she can do."

Max nods, reshaping her exterior into the leader that everyone takes her to be, the woman with no personal feelings, just feelings for the good of her nation. In effect, anyway. "I'll go check," she announces. "Just try to…just straighten this place up."

Mole doesn't answer, but leaves her anyway, and she heads off as quickly as she can without sprinting to the medical bay. Her mind is running rampant with possibilities as to what could have happened to Dix, and if he'll recover. The fact that Dean was also in T.C. when all this went down doesn't escape her currently frenzied thoughts, and though she knows Rade wouldn't let him go without a clean bill of health, she also knows Dean's persistence might as well get him into the Hall of Fame. And she's damn sure no one would tell her if anything happened to Dean; they don't like him much, and don't fail to make that much crystal clear.

Coming upon the silent medical wing, Max is struck dumb for the second time in the last ten minutes. For, sitting next to the doors like two smarmy Rottweilers, are Dean and Dalton. She's certain that the only other pairing she'd be more surprised to see just chatting it up would be Dean and Logan. (It would be Dean and Alec as well, but Max has a shrewd suspicion that once they figure all this out, or at least if Dean becomes less morose and Alec less stubborn, they'd be two peas in a pod. Probably.)

But _Dalton_? He practically hero-worships Alec. And no doubt he'd heard the unfavorable rumors about Dean. Not to mention, at least since Max had met him, Dean has had a grating, dynamic personality. So why in God's name are they just…hanging out?

Worse still, when Dix's life is on the line?

"What the hell is going on?" Max demands, glancing quickly at the closed hospital room, and then at Dalton.

He takes a second to answer, but before he does, Max's eyes catch the shirt that Dean has balled up on his shoulder. Unlike the dark green shirt that he'd used as a towel earlier, this one is a light cream color, and it's not hard to tell that what's saturating it so completely that it might as well have been dumped in a vat of crimson dye is more of Dean's blood.

"Something to tell me?" she snips, glaring at Dean, and instantly realizing she should be glaring at Dalton, given that Dean's immune to, well, everything.

Dean shakes his head. "Don't pretend you care," Dean says sharply, another total one eighty from how he'd looked with Dalton. "You're just keepin' me around because you want to find out where I've been and what my life story is."

Max doesn't respond, mainly because Dean's not all that far off from Max's ambitions. Sure, now she actually _does_ care about the damn guy, but the majority of her interest is, as she feels guilty about, intrigue. "Well? You feel like telling me?"

Dean shares a look with Dalton that legitimately escapes Max. She knows Dean wouldn't have told _Dalton_, so it must just be a guy thing, but it doesn't mean that Max is any less annoyed with it. "No," Dean replies instantly. "And I won't. The only reason I'm not halfway across the country by now is because you've got someone who can help me find Sam. And now apparently he's practically dead. Come morning, by which time I'll get your pretty little medic to bandage me up, I'm gone. I'll find Sammy myself."

Max sighs, Dean's emptiness over the loss of his brother pulsating. "Dean, we've tried to find Sam, and we can't," she answers, feeling like a broken record, albeit one with emotions. "Logan's tried everything, he—"

"Save it," Dean interjects. "That stuffy, pansy-ass pencil pusher doesn't give a shit about me, or about Sam. He thinks I'm _whoever_ that Alec guy is, and he just doesn't care. That freak with the doc was my last possibility to _actually_ find Sam."

"So how do you fit into this, Dalton?" Max says stiffly, setting her jaw. "Don't you have a job to do?"

Dalton holds up his hands, in mock surrender. "Hey, just helping," he defends, looking at Dean again.

"What, is Dean your new hero now?" gripes Max, knowing she's being irrationally touchy about it. It only placates her a little that the two boys are sitting on the floor while she's standing up. It makes her feel a little more empowered. Kinda.

Dalton, however, sees it not this way at all. He looks very much like he'd like to stand up right next to her, but for some loyalty she's having a hell of a time fathoming, he stays sitting right where he is, in her opinion childishly. She can forgive Dean, she guesses, owing to his butchered shoulder, but Dalton's just as capable as ever.

"You can be a real bitch sometimes, you know that?" Dalton says steadily, obviously having grown a pair since the last time she'd spoken with him. Or at least this is the first time he's actually said what he wants to.

Of course, now isn't exactly the most opportune time, as far as Max is concerned. "I'll deal with your moodiness later, Dalton," she says sternly. "I need to check on Dix now."

That gets both boys' attention, and they scramble to their feet. Well, rather, Dalton gets up relatively gracefully, and Dean, admirably masking his un-drugged pain, manages to gain upright balance, still holding Dalton's shirt to his skin. It's pretty worthless, seeing as how the shirt itself is almost dripping blood, but if it makes Dean feel better, then hey, no skin off Max's nose.

"Rade'll chew you a new one," Dalton advises grimly, knowing the details of her personality.

Dean arguably knows it more, albeit just more first-hand instead of theoretically. Sure, Rade hadn't won any Bitch of the Year Award with him, but she has a backbone that he can admire. "What gives you priority?" Dean opposes obstinately. "It's probably your fault anyway that the dude's incapacitated."

"_Beg your pardon_?"

"You'd'a been here, maybe it wouldn't have happened," Dean elaborates, finally giving up on the shirt and dropping it to the ground, where it _splats_ and sprays blood in a three-foot radius. Max's lips press into a thin line, her patience past the breaking point.

"Let's get one thing straight here, Dean Winchester," Max growls, stalking toward him angrily. She doesn't see the post-Hell, thrashing-nightmares, Alec lookalike at the moment, in favor of her knee-jerk reaction from someone mouthing off to her. "I run things around here, and I don't tolerate back talking. You may've had precedence with Sammy or whatever, but in Terminal City, you're just like Dalton here."

Dalton, not previously having experience with Dean being confronted by someone else, flicks his eyes between the two alphas, wondering if Max's super-strength would be enough. "Fine," Dean replies through clenched teeth, steadfastly ignoring the still leaking laceration on his shoulder. "I'm out the door. Might as well let the bastard who gave me this busted shoulder know that I'm gone, too. He can keep carting around my face without any interruption, if that's what you want."

Max opens her mouth to backpedal over her words, suddenly feeling a sense of panic through her haze of anger, a panic of having Dean out of her web of control. But Dean's _not_ one of her command, much as she'd like him to be, which gives him free rein to disobey her wishes. And he does just that, turning his back on her and pushing his way through the doors to the infirmary. He disappears for a mere fifteen seconds, during which neither Max nor Dalton can hear anything through the thick steel, and then comes out, carrying his green shirt over his arm and studiously ignoring his shoulder.

Sending Max a sarcastic salute and Dalton a nod full of undertones, he remarks icily, "Later, Maxie."

And Dean vanishes down the hallway, leaving behind a very emotionally confused Max, and a disappointed Dalton.

* * *

Meanwhile, not but twenty feet away from the two, Rade is hunched over Dix's body, keeping it together, though barely. She's forgotten all about Dean, his shoulder, and Dalton's interruption—okay, not _forgotten_, per se, just put to the back of her mind for the moment—in respect to fixing up Dix, who's by far the worst off of all of them.

One of his legs and arms are broken, the fibula and radius cracked in three places; she'd had to use both her industrial- and precision-sized forceps in order to pull out various pieces of shrapnel (including what looked sickeningly like a piece of a computer chip and desktop screen) and glass from his flesh; she'd had to reset a few joint dislocations, and sew together some ligaments. It all looked even more gruesome after she'd wiped away the copious amounts of blood (thank God for the transgenics' ability to coagulate quickly). At least the red fluid had masked most of the wounds.

The only somewhat good part in the hellish nightmare was that she'd already procured the necessary medical equipment to best monitor Dix's vital signs. They aren't, as her luck would have it, the most accurate of devices she'd like to have, though; Manticore creations and Ordinaries are two completely different species, and multiple times she'd had to remind herself that Dix's increased body temperature and lower EEG readings (given that Manticoreans were formatted to have their mental functions decrease in times of bodily distress, for risk overheating their control centers) aren't as deadly as they'd be if, say, they were Dean's readouts.

The irony that she feels she is more equipped to deal with Dean's results instead of Dix's, someone closer to her own DNA mutations, isn't lost on her. Still, some notifications are better than none, and, as Rade knows, her training _has_ been engineered to study the Manticore creations rather than Ordinaries. She's okay on that front, once she acclimates herself again. The only thing she's having massive difficulty with is the patient.

Dean was all right. He's an Ordinary. He's a tenacious, sardonic, annoying as all hell bastard. His traits made it easy for her to not (or attempt to not) get attached to him.

But Dix…Dix is one of her own, one of the smartest and steadfast guys she's known. It makes things a thousand times harder.

By that perception, it does cause her to work that much better in conjunction with wanting to save, as she'd indicated, one of her own. Plus, in that arena, she doesn't want to have Dix's death on her hands. Her track record with deaths isn't lengthy, and in fact she was one of Manticore's best medics, but that doesn't mean she's _immune_ to death taking her patients. Dean's lucky; a rotator cuff tear, even for an Ordinary, isn't usually a life-threatening injury. (Although, now that that small piece of her mind thinks about it, she's still got to fix that up. At worst, it'll get infected, and that could very well cause septicemia, an Ordinary disease she _knows_ is fatal if not treated.) Dix isn't so lucky.

She succumbed to taking a seat, much as she had been when Dean was unconscious, but her attention this time is not pure curiosity at the inner workings of an Ordinary's immune system, not to mention Dean himself. This time, it's more personal, and she's begging the skies and her medical knowledge to save Dix, to make the readings normalized and Dix's eyes open again. In that last vein, that had been arguably the hardest thing, emotionally, to do. She'd had to remove his trademark monocle, which was cracked beyond repair anyway: underneath it was more blood, and although she's pretty positive he won't be blind, it didn't make his petechial hemorrhage any less grisly.

Well aware that she shouldn't be one to let her sentimentality overcome her so easily, she takes a deep breath, blinks away her suddenly wet eyes, and walks over to the doors to open them. In another context, she'd want radio silence, as they say, but this is Dix, and Terminal City's residents deserve to see him, wish him well. It's not to say she's going to let _everyone_ in, but some people she'll allow.

Expecting to see Dalton and Dean sitting against the wall, as they'd been prior to her hustling them out—she'd obviously noticed Dean come into the room while she'd been working and grab his shirt, but she hadn't thought he'd be going anywhere fast—she sees there's still two people there, but not the two she'd been anticipating. More accurately, the scene is minus one sullen human. Dalton's standing up defiantly with his arms crossed over his chest, and Max is mostly glaring agitatedly. Rade looks down the hallway, but Dean's form is nowhere to be seen. There's a trail of blood drops going down the stone floor, which concerns her, but apart from that, there's no sign of him.

"Where's Dean?" she asks tiredly, noting the fatigue and sorrow in her own voice.

"Max banished him," Dalton replies, annoyed.

"I didn't 'banish him,'" Max protests instantly. "He left. But it doesn't matter now—how's Dix? Is he all right?"

Rade purses her lips, now noticing the large splattering of what has to be Dean's blood a few feet from Max's stance. There's nothing she can do for Dix now except wait, so she focuses instead on her other, now missing, patient. "What do you mean, he left?" Rade asks sharply. "His shoulder was fucked, and he was bleeding like he'd just gotten his arm chopped off. What did you say to him?"

She looks pointedly between Dalton and Max, their expressions giving nothing away besides annoyance. "God damn it, Dix is _not_ doing anywhere close to well in there, and I have to concentrate now on something else—where the hell is Dean?" she yells, her voice echoing down the hall.

Both Max and Dalton don't exactly look appropriately chided, more scared at Rade's words about Dix, but they also know that Rade's wrath rivals Max's. "He said something about needing to find his brother," Dalton offers helpfully, not knowing at all the full story. Or at least as full as Max had gathered about Dean, anyway. "That Dix was his only chance, and now he's lying injured, so Dean's going to try and find Sam himself."

Rade snaps her eyes to Max. "I thought you and Logan were taking care of that crap," she accuses, her internal anger (of course, her external is still well in effect) fading away quickly to unease.

If any of what Dean had confided to her was true, crazy as it was…she's sure Dean's in no condition to be looking all over Creation to find Sam. Especially if he has no idea where to look. She's of accord that Dix was Dean's best option in terms of locating a missing person, and she also has to admit that Dean's likely stubborn enough to go off on his own while gravely wounded, but that doesn't mean she can't lay blame.

After all, Dean hadn't shown any indication that he'd wanted to leave, last she'd spoken to him. And judging by the way he and Dalton were hitting it off (when things start settling down, she's going to ask about that), it means that something about Max's admittedly acerbic personality had scared off Dean. Okay, not _scared_ off, probably, but to the same ends.

"I told him that," Max replies, wondering when exactly it was that Rade got the rights to dictate.

"I believe his words were 'stuffy, pansy-ass pencil pusher,'" Dalton supplies eagerly, already missing Dean in the current sea of estrogen.

Rade once more can't really disagree with Dean's assessment, and neither, she knows, can the vast majority of T.C. It doesn't make what Dean'd voiced right, but from the looks of it, Dean had felt that Max was challenging him, and, as is the primal rule with a stalemate, one either walks away or attacks. So Dean, sensing his own limitations, chose the route of least carnage.

Tactically, Rade knows, it was the smartest thing to do. Health-wise, however, is a different story. Beyond that, Rade had thought Max wanted Dean to stick around, do the whole due diligence thing. When she easily could have stopped him, Rade's unsure why she hadn't. Timorous isn't an adjective anyone would ever apply to Max.

"And you're not _concerned_ what he might get into out there?" she seethes. "Last time, he got busted up by White, nearly died, and Alec threw him into concrete. He's obviously still confused as to what's going on, and when he's babbling about dem—" Rade breaks off quickly, not inclined to share with Max what Dean had told her, mainly because it'll just incite more control issues with Max, and _no one_ wants _that_. "About all sorts of things. You don't think Dean might land himself into something hairy again? It's not like White knows Dean's not Alec. Who's to say he won't just snatch Dean up again and kill him for real this time?"

"Well, you two sure became close in there, didn't you?" Max sneers, with a cattiness that Rade hasn't seen before. It's not quite jealousy or antipathy, but it certainly leans on that side of the fence.

Rade's not pleased with the assumption. If anything, she and Dean went from antagonistic to…well, not, she supposes. But not friends, either. Dean hadn't told her enough to make that so. "Retract the claws, Max," Rade says slowly and articulately. "It's not my fault you said something to ward Dean away." She's about to retreat back into her medical room, but then sighs and stows her irritation for the immediate moment. "Do you want to see Dix? He's relatively stable for now."

Dalton steps forward right away, wanting to see the transhuman in a better form than last time. Rade observes Max trying to stow her irritation just like Rade had done, and then nods and walks forward as well. Pushing open the doors, Rade allows the two in, preparing herself to answer a barrage of questions, as well as maybe a few indictments suggesting she hadn't done her best work. At least those accusations she can handle, though. Those are expected. Accusations that _she'd_ somehow done something to repel Dean, she can't. Those are just too uncalled for.

* * *

As for Dean, once he steps out of the hallway, his rage coming off of him in waves, he sees the destruction of what was erstwhile called the Command Center. He pauses for an instant, taking it in. The Dalton kid was right, it does look like a small bomb went off, albeit a bomb with enough force behind it to blow up computer terminals and a freakish-looking dude. A freakish-looking dude that he'd noticed on his way in (the conscious time), granted, and pegged him as being the most likely option to help him in finding Sam. Dean's seen enough scenes that look like C-4 resultant, and this one fits the bill.

Dean doesn't know what caused it; he's never been a bomb expert, after all. He can't even say whether it was demonic, though he sincerely doubts it since it looks pretty straight-up kosher, or whether it was done by a whacked-out human. From what he's seen from his time here, humanity had devolved past what Dean would have thought possible.

Shaking his head at the craziness of it all, as well as the extremely daunting task ahead of him—it'd be made simpler if he had his damn car and necklace, but especially with the former, he's no idea what the hell happened to it. He guesses maybe with Sam…whom he doesn't know the location of—he starts walking towards the front doors, aiming to remember where those tunnels are that he'd come through. He does after ten or so seconds, his memory of city and localized layouts refined to masterful from years of having to do so.

He doesn't get more than a dozen yards, though, before he's stopped by another blur, and fuck, he's getting tired of that particular ability. Unlike one of the "normal" transgenics, unfortunately, he's now face-to-face with his lookalike, the face still boggling to him. Considering the fact that he'd only seen Alec when the man had doomed his shoulder. It makes a guy not really feel favorable towards someone.

"Get out of my way," Dean snarls, intending to sidestep him, but in his mind knowing it won't work.

"Where are you going, Winchester?" Alec asks, only a little less uncomfortable with Dean's face. His character is an entirely different matter, but Alec's had more time to process Dean than Dean has had to process Alec. Then his eyes flick to Dean's shoulder, the absence of his shirt attracting the notice. It's cause for disquiet, not just because of the bleeding, but because of the crisscrossed scars streaked where Dean's heart would be. Nodding towards it, he comments, "Thought Rade fixed that up."

Dean shrugs, then straightaway regrets it. But, bearing in mind present company, Dean grinds his teeth and succeeds in not showing anything. Unfortunately for him, the extra little beads of blood from his wound and sweat from his temples don't lie. "I'm _fine_, clone dude," Dean replies, attempting to edge around Alec again. Again, he stops him.

"Hey!" Alec snaps, feeling less off his game, but at the same time a little more annoyed, with Dean. It's taken a while to get over the fact that Dean looks like he would be in the future, but he's doing so. (Although, Alec muses, it's probably worse for Dean, who would be familiar with his past appearance.) "Slow down there, Rambo. What is it exactly that you're trying to do? Weren't you staying here for a while?"

"What, you want to share a forty with me or something? Not interested," Dean rejects, seriously contemplating hitting Alec just so he can feel better. This whole thing is getting taxing, and his immune system is already begging him for mercy.

Alec has dealt with difficult people before, namely Max, but he's never encountered _his own_ obstinacy. It kinda sucks ass. "Would you quit it?" Alec grouses angrily, wishing to just have his clone—or whatever; they really need to figure out a different word, 'cause with not knowing the truth, the changing semantics is getting old—stop moving for one damn second. "Wait…did Max talk to you or something? Is it because of her you're leaving?"

"No," Dean sighs, knowing it's the truth. "It's because'a that guy that got blown up. He's a computer geek, isn't he? Thought he could help me get Sam, but…he's no use now for that. And if I know Sammy, which by hell I do, he's probably switching cities already. It'll be looking for him in a three thousand mile haystack, but I've done it before with people, I'll do it again."

Alec almost quirks a smile at Dean's vehemence. He's never really had someone as close as a brother before—Mole's probably the closest, and that's a little frightening to realize, but he's still not a _brother_—but he can recognize devotion when he sees it. Dean's got it, that want, _need_, to at least know where a person is because they have a bond with you. He knows Max mainly wants to help Dean because she's fascinated by him, and maybe even because she wants to know why he and Alec resemble one another, but in Alec's book, that's a crap reason. Regardless of who Dean mirrors, Alec feels Max, if she really cares for Dean, should help him just because.

It's that which makes Alec really see past Dean's face. Sees past _his_ face. "I can help," Alec proposes, staring Dean straight into his own eyes.

Dean snorts ungracefully, feeling another pang in his shoulder. "Yeah. Right," Dean objects. "You're just some good Samaritan now? What happened to punching my lights out? Please. You're just like that Max chick."

"I'm not," says Alec, not appreciating in the least the comparison. "And hey, you hit a buddy of mine, then threw a knife at me and called me a shapeshifter. It hurts a little, man."

"I'm still not so sure that you're not," Dean says unnecessarily. Contrary to what he'd said, he _is_ sure Alec's not. Otherwise Alec'd be long dead, the silver running through his bloodstream and stopping his heart cold. "Besides, say I _did_ let you help. What good could you do?"

Alec takes a breath, knowing he has to give Dean something in order to get something back. Basic game theory and military negotiation tactic—tit for tat. He hasn't told anyone about it, but he wagers Dean's the person to entrust with a secret, given his background.

"I knew the info on you and Sam first, you know," Alec offers. "Before Logan the WASP told Max. And I'm one of the best, if not _the_ best, people here who can track someone."

"Yeah?" Dean asks skeptically, taking in Alec's form. _His_ twenty-ish-year-old form. And if Dean remembers right, he wasn't exactly a body builder at that age. Alec doesn't look much different. "_You_ can track people?"

Swallowing heavily, Alec reinforces himself. "I was a…an assassin, I guess," Alec confides, feeling a black surge flood him. "Commissioned for sniping. Killing someone before they even knew a bullet was coming towards them. So yeah. I can track pretty fucking well."

Dean looks Alec up and down, seeing in Alec's intense gaze that, however blasé he may have said it, indulging even those few sentences took a lot. He's not feeling _sorry_ for the kid, but he understands struggling with yourself. With your past, and your skills. "Aren't you some leader person here?" Dean inquires, having seen the way that Max _and_ Alec had manifested some sort of power over the rest of the transgenics. "Gotta hold down the fort, don't you?"

Alec gives a twisted smile. "Not right now I don't," Alec refutes. "All Max would do is insult and yell at me because of Dix—or you—even though it was hardly my fault, and all the rest of T.C. needs to deal with this whole thing by themselves. It's not like we're in battle at the moment. Guess White's taking a break."

Dean's blood runs cold. "White, that was…"

"Yeah," Alec confirms, knowing Dean wouldn't exactly harbor warm feelings for the guy that tortured him in place of Alec. It causes a mild guilt trip in the transgenic. Alec, obviously, doesn't know that White's torture wasn't anywhere near what Dean's had in the past, but it still doesn't mean it was a joy ride for Dean. "Look, um, Dean," Alec begins, Dean's name weird in his mouth, given whom he resembles. "I'm part of this, too, you know. You're not the only one with some person who looks like you. I mean, I don't know Sam, but…maybe if you find him, you guys can solve this thing. No one else has had luck."

Dean stares at Alec for a long while, hearing various noises around him indicating the residents still cleaning up, or dealing, or whatever, and sees the sincerity in Alec's face. He's well aware that Alec and the rest of them were trained to be great actors, but there's just something in the guy's expression that leads Dean to believe that this time, he's not lying.

And weird as it is, Dean knows he can use all the help he can get. "All right," he says, feeling he's going to lament the whole decision. "But Sammy's _my_ brother, and _I'm_ heading this thing." Alec doesn't make any move to respond, which Dean doesn't know how to interpret, but he'll deal with that later. He just has one more thing to clarify.

"You any good at field med? 'Cause my shoulder hurts like a _bitch_."

Alec laughs, this time letting Dean brush past him.

And follows.


	22. Chapter XXI: Time Waits for No One

A/N: Same stuff applies as in the first chapter. Oh, and I neither own _Supernatural_ nor _Dark Angel._ Just this.

A/N part two: Specific episodes of _Supernatural_ mentioned are: none. Specific episodes of _Dark Angel_ mentioned are: none.

* * *

**Of Desire and the Status Quo**

_**Chapter XXI: Time Waits for No One

* * *

**_

Anyone on the street taking a casual glance at Dean and Alec would simply pass them off as brothers, the older just taking a walk with the younger, rare family time as it were. No one would guess they were somehow part of a convoluted government genetics project. And, actually, for both men there are advantages: for Alec, he'd be recognized not as easily, not with Dean there; for Dean, no one would question his skittishness, since Alec exudes enough extroversion for the both of them.

Internally, on the flipside, each are having their own battles. Alec, for the most part, is still wondering—since he'd first voiced his offer, to be honest—what the hell he's doing. Why, for the love of God, he's following Dean Winchester, who, by all counts that Alec had found, is a socio-psychopath. All logic tells him he's going crazy himself for participating in this foolhardy plan. It is foolhardy, to be sure: Alec knows Dean doesn't really have a destination in mind, nor does he have a methodology for finding Sam. Yet Alec's walking alongside him. Why?

Dean is wondering much of the same things, at least the parts about allowing Alec to tag along. A few hours of walking with the X5 had started to acclimate Dean to a twin of his face, in looks anyway, but the disposition still floors him. He guesses he continuously expects Alec to act just how Dean had when he was younger, but Alec doesn't. Sure, he's got Dean's propensity of being a smartass, of leering at women, of hiding emotions away. But the soldier inside Dean isn't like the soldier inside Alec, and while Dean feels he was completely robbed and gutted from a childhood because of Mary's death and John's crusade, he knows Alec's might as well have also been Hell. (Dean's probably the one person who can say that with firsthand knowledge.)

That said, at least Alec is acquainted with this gone-to-seed version of Seattle, of the world, regardless of that he was abused as a kid. All Dean's seen is destruction, gotten tortured, withstood more nightmares, and been studied like he's some damn new kind of insect. Well, Dean's had enough of _that_. If the only thing Max, Logan, and even Rade to an extent, are going to do is look at him like _he's_ the freak of nature, then he's not going to stick around. Dean's never been one for waiting, anyway. He dislikes staying in one place for more than a week—maybe more if there's a particularly long hunt—and Seattle's (or at least that Terminal City place) worn out its welcome with him.

There is one good thing about Alec coming with him, though, Dean has to concede. The kid _is_ pretty observant. For instance, he can tell to precision that Dean _doesn't want to talk_. That Dean's one wrong remark or step away from completely blowing a gasket, which would be okay, except Alec doesn't know whether it'd be a mental or physical one. He'd be cool with getting clocked a time or two, fine, but he sure as hell doesn't know what he'd do if Dean had another cerebral meltdown. Alec doesn't have nearly the patience and fortitude that Joshua had had; he's not sure if he could just play into Dean's visions or not.

But Alec's made his choice, he and Dean are already out of the inner city, Seattle's skyline and Puget Sound to their backs, and although Alec can ditch Dean whenever he sees fit, he hasn't seen it quite yet. Truth be, if he's read Dean right, the poor guy wouldn't do very awesomely alone.

However, even Alec, while he knows Dean wants quiet, has to have some sort of outline in mind. He's about to ask where exactly Dean plans to go, how long he plans to just _walk_ (Alec's not too keen on strolling the entire U.S., thanks), when suddenly Dean veers off to the left, toward a row of houses—if they can be called that—that are some of the last before they wander outside of the Seattle outskirts.

He merely stops in his place and watches Dean, pondering what Dean's intending to do, and whether it's sane or not. Dean takes a few seconds, obviously debating something, before calmly walking over to an older-model Mustang, searches around, going all the way to the side of the house, before bending down to pick up something, snapping his fingers, and walking back over to the car. With a speed and agility that impresses Alec, Dean slides the newly-straightened coat hanger between the car's weather stripping and window, only fumbling for a second before Alec's sensitive ears pick up the sound of a lock opening.

Alec's curious just as to how many times Dean's done this before (not sure he wants to know), but strides over to Dean anyway, without questioning him just yet. Dean doesn't signal that he notices Alec's there, instead just opens the door and reaches down to finagle the steering column covering off, revealing the complex series of wires underneath. It's total second nature to Dean, this process, and whipping out his pocket knife—the same one that was previously embedded in Alec's thigh, and Alec's still very unhappy with that fact—he quickly strips two of the wires' protective coating. Tapping the exposed ends of the wires together, the engine gives no fewer than a dozen false starts before finally turning over.

Standing up straight with a self-satisfied, yet still not reaching his eyes, smile, Dean looks at Alec. "Last chance, kid," Dean says frankly, vaguely gesturing to the six-cylinder. "I ain't gonna quit until I find Sam. You really want to help, get your scrawny ass in. You want to go back to your scrap of city, better get going. Sun's goin' down."

Alec shrugs, his faster-than-normal-processing mind already having gone through all possible outcomes. A grin is all Alec gives (he doesn't choose to point out that even if the sun did go down, Alec could see just fine) as he meanders around to the other side of the car, sitting down in the torn leather seat and shutting the door with an oddly final slam. From his position, Alec doesn't see the small sigh of relief Dean gives before he himself takes the driver's seat. He won't ever admit it, but just having _someone_ sitting next to him, even if it's not Sam, feels closer to familiar than he's had in two millennia. And, Dean thinks, that's a good thing.

* * *

Finally dragging herself out of the medical room after seeing Dix's motionless form, Max retreats to her office, where anyone with half a brain knows not to disturb her unless it's of utmost importance. She honestly doesn't know what to think about the whole situation, about Dix, about Dean, about Alec, about Logan, hell, about Sam, about everything. It's just too much swirling around in her head, enough to make her nauseas, trapped inside of her own body. She'd thought about asking Rade for some analgesics, but knows Rade's answer. They're not for transgenics, she'd say, unless you draw out three times the amount for Ordinaries, and I won't let you do that. They're for Dean, she'd say, if he'd need more.

Well, that and Max doesn't think even morphine is really the thing to cure her of her current thoughts. The newest one being, obviously, what the source of the explosion was; _why_ there was an explosion to begin with; _who_ had done it? She has faith that her people can discover the answers to her questions, but how long would it take? Dean's already gone. Does that, Max wonders, make him obsolete on her mental list of things to fix? Out of sight, out of mind? She hopes not. Generally, she doesn't like to part with someone on bad terms, unless it's purposeful.

Feeling that she'll need someone to bounce things off of, she gets up wearily out of her chair and walks into Command, studiously trying to ignore the demolition still in sight. Instead, she walks around, looking for her second-in-command, wondering where in the world he'd gone off to. It just figures that when she actually wants to find him, he'd be incognito, but when she really _didn't_, he'd be buzzing around her like a particularly annoying, malaria-toting mosquito.

She does find Mole, though, and goes up to him. "Have you seen Alec around?" she asks, letting nothing show on her face, but taking in the drawn expression of Mole's.

"Nope," Mole replies curtly. "Why?"

"I just need to talk to him," Max answers vaguely, glancing over Mole's shoulder to where the front gate is, thinking maybe Alec would just stroll in, but also knowing that he wouldn't. "You haven't heard from him?"

Mole stares at her, like he's disbelieving she's actually asking the same thing twice. "I haven't seen him," he responds again. "We done here? I have to…"

He leaves the sentence unfinished, but Max fills it in silently anyway. Nodding, she leaves him to walk away from her and grouch at someone for something that probably isn't their fault. She heads back to her office, finding the sojourn completely unhelpful.

Beyond that, however, she can't help a very persistent nag in the back of her mind. A persistent nag that's whispering a possibility that she really doesn't want to be true. She doesn't _think_ Alec would be so quick to jump on the Dean bandwagon, but…Alec's never been one for predictability. Sighing, and running a hand raggedly through her hair, she takes out her cell phone and dials Alec's, for once glad he'd been so insistent upon procuring them both one.

The phone rings once, twice, three times, four times, and then clicks to the automated voicemail that has no personalized message whatsoever. "Alec, pick up your damn phone," Max snaps into the speaker. "Where the hell are you?"

She hangs up and tries again, to the same result. And the persistent nag gets worse and worse.

* * *

Alec's cell phone rings for the umpteenth time, and finally Dean loses it and demands why Alec hasn't attended to it yet. When Alec shows the display to him, the black and white text reading "Satan's Mistress," Dean rolls his eyes. "Wuss," he remarks, neglecting to acknowledge he'd done the same thing when wanting to avoid a conversation now and again.

"Shut up," Alec replies loquaciously, finally deciding to set his phone on silent and dump it in the cupholder. "She's just needing a venting adversary, and I'm really not in the mood." Feeling now's a good a time as any, he crowbars in, "You know, it wouldn't hurt if you'd let me drive—"

"No," Dean dismisses, his hand gripping the steering wheel tightly. "Just…look out for a drugstore."

"Why?" Alec asks before he can think it through.

Dean doesn't do anything besides wince and glance anxiously at his shoulder, which is still bleeding impressively, staining the brown leather of the car. Dean knows when he needs to get something looked at, and though he doesn't feel he has time to go to a hospital at the moment, he's already feeling a little woozy from blood loss. He's gotten enough gashes and breaks like this before to know when he's in danger of passing out, and now's one of those times.

Passing a sign that gives the mileage to Ellensburg (102 miles), Spokane (279 miles), and Coeur d'Alene (313 miles), Alec's a little surprised that they're already a good distance on the interstate—courtesy of Dean's driving, which, as Alec notes, is kind of like his own—but he abides by Dean's necessities. Given his condition, it's probably better if Alec's at the wheel, but he can see that that's one privilege Dean's not going to give up without a hell of a fight.

Luckily, it's not long before Alec sees (aided by his amped-up vision) an old, abandoned fill-up joint maybe half a mile off the freeway. Letting Dean know this information, it's but a second's lapse and the car is heading toward it, tires quickly crunching over gravel and debris, the exit having long been unattended.

Just like he'd been so efficient with hotwiring the car, Dean doesn't hesitate to kick down the front door of the convenience mart, the wood splintering off its hinges and collapsing inside. Alec figures it's good enough, and follows Dean to the pathetic first aid section, grabbing a small multitude of items that reeks of having had the need to do this a million times in the past.

Dean shoves the items into Alec's hands, and Alec looks at them with disdain, their primitivism shameful: a needle and thread from a pocket sewing kit act as sutures and a surgical needle; dated wraps of gauze and athletic tape act as sterile bandages and medical adhesive; the only remotely hospital-grade equipment is hydrogen peroxide and rubbing alcohol. And, unsurprisingly, Dean's own brand of anesthetic: Bacardi 151.

"You're serious," Alec deadpans, looking at Dean's very not joking face. "This is so not going to be fun for you."

Dean's pretty confident that a glare is the appropriate response to Alec's unsupportive comment. He makes his way over to the run-down service counter and grabs the chair behind it, taking a seat. Alec exhales incredulously, but walks to Dean anyway, fully aware but not planning to inform Dean that med wasn't his specialty back at Manticore. Truthfully, they hadn't had much use for it, thanks to the transgenics' boosted immunities and coagulation. Still, he's also very cognizant of the fact that Dean's entrusting him to do this, and that's an incentive if nothing else. Alec's just glad Dean hadn't asked him to perform the shoulder _surgery_. That he knows he's not good at.

Dean takes a long draft of the vodka, which Alec interprets as the sign to start, and pours the hydrogen peroxide over Dean's wound before swabbing the area around it with the alcohol. Then, accompanied by a grimace, he threads the white string onto the needle and stitches it through one side of Dean's skin, across the bloody laceration, and out the other, the flesh kneading together with the suture. Alec snatches a glimpse of Dean's face, and although for the most part it's eerily stoic, the clenched jaw and multiple, quick drags of liquor don't deceive.

It doesn't take Alec long to finish, and he pours another dose of peroxide and alcohol over the stitched area, and then covers it with the makeshift bandages. He's stopped the bleeding, but, as if he can see inside of Dean's muscle, the ripped rotator cuff still screams to be repaired. Alec wonders just how long Dean plans to let it sit, and knows that any doctor worth their salt would frown massively over Dean's methods. Probably sock him one in Rade's case. If Dean is serious about their only priority being to find Sam, well, Alec hopes Sam's at most in Spokane. 'Cause he's really not positive how much longer Dean's machismo can outsmart his body before the latter simply gives out.

"All right, done," Alec says reluctantly, scowling at his own handiwork. The stitches are neat, precise, and as surgical as they can be given the equipment, but the crudity is still blatant. "But that rotator—"

"Shut it, kid," Dean barks in his growly-voice, before Alec can finish. He's heard enough badgering about his fucking shoulder to last him a lifetime. He _knows_ it's bad. He _knows_ it'll all go to shit if he doesn't get it taken care of. He _knows_ he needs a hospital. He _knows_ Alec's harassment is so similar to Sam's when Dean would get a gash from some creature or other and did his patented bitchface, but ultimately stay quiet.

He also knows that Alec's not nearly as apt in the self-preservation category when dealing with him.

"Dude, you could die," Alec wheedles, well aware he's going to the extreme. If his stitches are any good—which he'll say they definitely are—they should keep infection at bay for the time being, but they're not forever.

Dean stands up abruptly, turning away from Alec and shutting his eyes against the barrage of vertigo that overtakes his system. He's not going to be all weak in front of Alec, he's _not_, but fuck, his eyesight's tunneling for a few seconds. Alec, of course, doesn't miss this, his sharp vision catching all the affectations of Dean's body, but he won't say anything. Not just yet, anyway. It'd be a wisecrack that would only suffice if he and Dean actually knew each other for longer. Alec, with a certain amount of emptiness, wonders what'll happen when they find Sam. If Dean was telling the truth about leaving Alec's ass in the middle of nowhere, or wherever Sam is. Sure, Alec's fully capable hotwiring a car on his own, but it'd still sting a little, the abandonment.

Ah, Christ, when did Alec become such a candy-ass?

Dean interrupts his steadily more depressing thoughts with a harsh command before Alec can really do some damaging self-evaluation. "Hurry up," he says, punching Alec in the arm. "Burning daylight."

Alec decides to not let Dean in on the fact that the sun's _already_ begun to set, along with the one that neither really has any remote idea where Sam is. Then again, Alec did agree to go with Dean, so really, he can't complain all that much.

"I need food," Alec whines (hey, he never said he couldn't complain about _important_ stuff), already heading toward the chips and sweets aisle. "My metabolism is fast. Gotta eat."

At Alec's declaration, Dean wonders when exactly it was since _he'd_ last eaten. He can't remember, and honestly that shocks him. He's pretty sure there's no bacon cheeseburgers in the minimart, but he tells Alec to get him some grub anyway. He won't be any use if his system is so lacking in nutrition—or a facsimile of some, that is.

Seven minutes later, both boys are back in the car, Dean equipped with his now half-drained flagon of Bacardi, as well as Funyuns, Doritos, a partially flat Coke, three Snickers bars, as well as a bottle of aspirin that Alec had nearly strong-armed him into taking, calling bullshit on the I'm-feeling-fine-with-no-pain defense; Alec is comparably stocked, though he ended up with about three times what Dean had, albeit substituting the Coke for a Dr. Pepper and a six-pack, and the Snickers for a large bag of M&Ms and gummy bears. Some of which Dean attempted to "borrow," but quickly got a stinging slap on the hand.

Unhealthily fed but sated now, Dean's current ailment—apart from the sans Sam, shoulder, and Alec issues—is finding a radio station that doesn't suck extreme balls. Not only are there not very many radio stations to begin with, but either they're a pitiful attempt at an NPR-type show (not that Dean had ever listened to it), or full of watered-down techno shit that Dean had first heard at that bar days ago.

"Jesus, just pick a station or shut it off, will you?" Alec gripes finally, after about five minutes of Dean flipping through channels.

"This reality is total crap," Dean grouses, for the moment only making reference to the radio. "There's no _good _music."

Alec cocks his head, intrigued. After all, he'd never heard any other music in his life than what the so-called popular tunes were. "Like what?" he asks honestly.

Dean looks over at Alec, initially dubious, but then smirks when he realizes he has the chance to, as Sam would denote it, corrupt. "Can't believe you people don't know," Dean comments, shaking his head, and very much wishing he had his box of cassette tapes. Hell, he'd even take a _CD_, if it meant rock music. "First thing you need to know: electric guitar. No lame synthesized crap, or whatever your anemic songs are made of. Second thing: actual bands. Metallica. Zeppelin. The Ramones. Rolling Stones. Van Halen. You've really never even _heard_ of _anyone_?"

Bristling, yet at the same time almost in awe of each word Dean's saying to him, Alec feels the need to defend "this reality," as Dean had so obtusely put it. "It's not all bad," he says, irritated that his voice doesn't sound as sure as he would like it to be. "I mean, no drinking age, and you can always impress the women when you're fluent in six languages."

Rolling his eyes, Dean flips on the squeaking windshield wipers as rain starts to pelt the car. "You're lucky there's no drinking age, kid. Otherwise it'd be fake IDs for the next five years," Dean snarks, choosing to ignore the six languages thing. Dean's got two—English and Latin—and he's picked up a few phrases in French and Spanish here and there, but it wouldn't exactly be enough to, say, get him around one of the countries. But hey, if he's ever in the Vatican, look out ladies.

Alec looks at Dean strangely. "Bars haven't bothered to card people since a year or two after the Pulse," he says, the rejoinder a key point in Alec's puzzlement over Dean's appearance. Yeah, he'd wondered about the police reports and showing Dean born in '79, but that wasn't _real_.

Granting Alec with a noncommittal noise, Dean turns his eyes back to the lacking-in-maintenance freeway. "It wasn't always," Dean replies, somewhat distantly. At Alec's continued stare, Dean decides to throw current caution to the wind. Hell, if anyone, Alec's the one most deserving of information. "I mean, from '79 to 2008, at least, carding was still a bitch to get around. Damn government cracking down on fake IDs and everything. Homeland Security ones were the hardest…not that _I_ had any trouble making them convincing, of course."

Alec waits, almost wishing Dean would just call "psych" on him, say this whole thing's a joke, that he'll pull off a face mask à la _Mission Impossible_, and turn out to be some member of T.C. Alec doesn't have that luck, though. "So…everything we found was…kosher?" Alec says laboriously, taking his eyes from the road to stare rivetingly at Dean's profile. "I mean, everything?"

Dean chuckles, a low guttural sound that Alec doesn't think really fits with how Dean looks. "Pretty much," Dean affirms. "They just left out the fact that most of the 'murders' were killing ghosts and demons that happened to be riding some poor bastards topside."

"Demons."

"Did I stutter?"

Offset, Alec turns back to looking out the front windshield, at the gray skies and flooded road. "No, it's just—demons? As in, not metaphorical?"

"Sammy'd be a hell of a lot better at doing the puppy dog eyed, let-me-hold-you, ice cream way, lead you into this whole thing. But I like things up front, and if you don't, tough. 'Cause that's how things are gonna be."

Laughing ironically, Alec shakes his head. "No objections here," he answers. "But, uh, there's kind of a difference between wanting things straightforward and having someone tell you evil personified exists. And, you know, the whole clone thing."

"I ain't anybody's clone," Dean snaps instantly, unaware as to why that assertion strikes a nerve with him. Maybe it's his whole insecurity thing. Fear of being cast aside, out of identity, so to speak. "If anybody is, it's you, scrawny."

In another circumstance, Alec would have been on Dean with the "scrawny" comment in an instant. Had Dean not attributed Alec as a clone in such derogatory terms. True, Alec knows Dean's unaware of the connotation it held, and Alec doubts Max had let Dean in on the verity that Ben would be in the same boat as he if Ben were alive, but it still rubs Alec the wrong way.

"There a problem if I'm a clone?" Alec bites, wondering if he could punch Dean unconscious and take control of the car quick enough so it didn't crash. He thinks he probably could.

Dean turns his concentration for a moment to look at Alec, his eyes dark. "Dude, there are so many things wrong with what you just said," he replies, thinking that if they were back in 2008, Alec's comment would earn him strange stares from everyone. "And hey, I'm not the one spouting off theories about you coming from me or whatever."

Settling back in his seat, Alec tells himself to calm down. He's not fond of letting his temper get away from him, and just because Dean had said something flippant shouldn't ignite it. Ruminating on Dean's words, Alec sits back in his seat and watches idly the tired road stretch on into the darkening horizon.


	23. Chapter XXII: Sleeping Wake

A/N: Same stuff applies as in the first chapter. Oh, and unfortunately I neither own _Supernatural_ nor _Dark Angel_. Just this.

A/N part two: No _Supernatural_ until March 25. WOE.

A/N part three: Specific episodes of _Supernatural_ mentioned are: "Lucifer Rising." Specific episodes of _Dark Angel_ mentioned are: "Designate This."

* * *

**Of Desire and the Status Quo**

_**Chapter XXII: Sleeping Wake, and Waking Sleep

* * *

**_

"So…since you don't know where Sam is…" Alec starts as gently as possible, slowly taking his eyes from the road to look at Dean's profile. "Where exactly are we going?"

To Alec's relief, Dean doesn't bark at him like Alec had just tried to kick a puppy or something. Instead, he gives a sort of oddly coordinated sad smirk. "I have a friend over in South Dakota," he answers, warmth spreading across each word.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Alec says haltingly, twisting in his seat to face Dean fully. "You _know_ someone here? I thought you were full-on Last Man Standing!"

Dean doesn't seem to find Alec's outcry humorous or particularly impressive. "He's more like a father to me, to tell you the truth," he informs Alec. "To both Sammy and me. His name's Bobby Singer. Runs a salvage yard out in Sioux Falls."

Alec thinks, but he can't remember anything about a Bobby—or Robert, or any other derivatives thereof—Singer in the files he'd read about the Winchesters. Which means one of two things: Alec missed something, or Dean really is crazy and is making up some false persona within his mind and is taking Alec to a location that has a fictional significance.

A few days ago, Alec probably would've gone with Door Two. But after hours in the same car with Dean, with good view of all Dean's affectations, Alec's much more disinclined to go with that one. That, and now he's really quite inquisitive as to who this Bobby guy is, given how important Dean's voice implicates him as.

"Okay," Alec agrees, finally realizing that all along Dean had had that destination in mind, and hadn't just zoomed the car onto a random freeway. "So what do you think going to see this dude will accomplish?"

Dean shifts his weight in the seat, the position uncomfortable after a few hours of being in the same one. "Maybe he'll know where Sam is," Dean confesses. "If anyone would know, it'd be Bobby."

"And if he doesn't?" Alec asks. Dean glances over at him. "Hey, just playing devil's advocate here."

Dean grants him that, knowing that it never hurt to consider another opinion. Not that he _enjoys_ Alec second-guessing him, but having Sam to do so had saved Dean's skin more than once in the past. Even prevented him from killing innocent people. Had Dean been on his own with some of those…

"Then I'll find Sam another way," Dean says solidly, although there's a hint of a catch in his voice, like he doesn't want to consider the possibility that Sam would have completely fallen into the woodwork and couldn't be found.

Alec has half a mind to also broach the fact that maybe the reason that Sam couldn't be found is because he's dead, but looking at Dean's face, he can't bring himself to do it. It's not that he's afraid Dean would beat him to a pulp or anything, it's that he can't manage to squash the small amount of confidence that Dean has going for him. Or purpose, for that matter.

Because, as far as he can tell, finding Sam is the only thing that actually makes sense to Dean in the unfamiliar surroundings. Alec can't even relate, either, which bugs him on some level. Alec's been in crazy situations and environments before (take, for example, the first time Manticore had sent him on a field mission), but he'd never, you know, been catapulted out of his own time and space. That's a whole new ball of wax.

He is a little worried, though, at how tense Dean is, how spun he is. He's afraid that even the smallest prod could either unwind him to a depressed, unreachable pile of mush, or else cause him to simply explode, probably violently. He knows most of it is, again, because of the Sam thing, but then he thinks back at just how long they'd been traveling. Realizing it'd been at least ten hours (the way Dean drives), they're probably already in eastern Montana, and Alec knows with all Dean's body's been through—even the rotator cuff notwithstanding—in the past week, it might as well be twenty hours that Dean's driven. Alec makes up his mind.

Seeing a sign for an upcoming town, Alec sits up straighter. "All right," he says firmly, now set in a path and glad for it. "Take this exit. To…" Alec focuses his vision on the name that, for Dean, would be out of sight. "Pryor."

"We're not—"

"Can it," Alec interrupts sharply. "The only stops we've made are to siphon gas out of random cars and then we're back on the road again. Not only do we need food—I'm fucking hungry, dude—but it's my turn to drive, and I'll knock you unconscious if I have to. But I think both of us would rather not have to resort to that." Dean stares at him. "Just _do it_, Winchester. I know a little something about pushing your body to the limits, and the fallout is hell. So stop, damn it."

Dean would rather sock Alec in the face and keep driving than obey the transgenic's wishes, but internally, he knows Alec is absolutely right. Truth be, for the past hundred miles or so, Dean's been aching like all of his muscles have been stretched out more than they're made to do, like his bones are individually in an iron vise that slowly keeps tightening. His shoulder's still waging war on him as well, despite Alec's neat stitches, and he'd started getting a migraine sometime after they'd passed the junction for Highway 15. On top of that, he'd swallowed the last of the aspirin when Alec had taken a—forgive the pun—cat nap a while back.

He knows Alec's correct, and he knows it won't do either of them any good if he falls prey to an immune system failure. What help would he be in finding Sam if that happened?

Closing his eyes in both fatigue and concession, Dean checks the mirror and takes the exit corresponding to Pryor. The town's tiny, Dean and Alec both notice, but Dean's been in smaller towns before, towns that didn't even have a mini-mart. This one, however, is sizable enough to have a diner, and Dean pulls up into a parking space before his stubbornness can decide to ignore Alec and get right back on the freeway.

The shutting down of the engine as Dean pulls the keys out is like a temporary balm to his tiredness, the knowledge that this break won't just be a stealing gas or bathroom pit stop making him relax just the smallest bit. Alec isn't visibly relieved at all, but inside, he's feeling a lot of the same things Dean is, in terms of being glad that they can get out of the car for awhile.

The air is warm as Dean steps out of the stolen Mustang, the sky truly living up to its state's motto, oppressing everything below it and yet somehow opening up the atmosphere at the same time. It doesn't mean much to Dean, though, since he's been through Montana more times than he cares to count, and although he's grateful to see a sky that's not the color of shale, he's having a hard time appreciating it in deference to his bodily soreness.

Alec's not having much of the same dismal thoughts, even as he looks over at Dean's posture that epitomizes stiffened joints and muscles. Shutting the door and walking around the side of the car, Alec pushes Dean forward gently towards the front of the restaurant. As they enter, pulling open the door with a ring of the bell atop it, Alec takes a look around, the action purely instinctive by now. He notices Dean doing the same, to an extent, but it's half-hearted, like he doesn't want to exert himself any more than he has to.

The hostess, a curvaceous, coppery redhead in a white blouse and skirt, looks at Alec a little too long before asking with a coquettish smile, "Just you?"

A little unsettled, Alec shakes his head and gestures at Dean. "Nah," he replies, ignoring the woman's double-take at Dean as well. Alec imagines she's thinking it's the best day of her life, having the two of them in there at once. It's written all over her face, anyhow. "My…er…my brother and me."

"Follow me," the woman replies, grabbing two peeling, plastic-coated menus from a mounted tray and walking to a booth not but twenty feet from the front of the diner. Which, given its size, is pretty much the farthest away. "My name's Harmony," she offers. "I'll be your waitress as well."

He doesn't know why the woman—Harmony, evidently—feels the need to make everything sound like a double entendre, but Alec gives her a shaky smile. "Of course you will," he replies. "Thanks."

She walks away with a last skim over Alec and Dean, purposefully sashaying. Alec shakes his head in bemusement. Disregarding the fact that he's really not interested, and that he and Dean have way more pressing issues at the moment, he can't see for the life of him how _anyone_ would find that sort of starkness attractive. Alec already feels defiled just by her once-overs. He can't imagine what actually hanging out with her would be like.

Getting all related thoughts out of his head, Alec instead turns to his menu, ignoring the grease splotches and unidentifiable stains. He's eaten in worse-looking places. Deciding on a fourteen ounce rib eye medium-well and a root beer, he hands his menu to Harmony once she comes back. Thankfully, she seems to have gotten the hint that Alec has no desire to pursue her; considering Dean thus far hasn't spoken at all, Alec assumes Harmony realizes she's struck out with the both of them.

"What about you?" she asks Dean, holding her pad of paper and pen.

"I'm fine," Dean says, "Just a Coke for me."

"_Dean_," Alec censures, glaring at him. "Come on, man."

Dean looks up at his opposite with, Alec interprets, the intent to glare back, but it's ineffective. Alec's adamant, and, actually, it's Dean's own fault. Although Alec hasn't known Dean since before he popped up in Seattle, Dean's figure is blatantly more emaciated than it should be, his features hollowed instead of chiseled, his eyes a dank, unlit green. Eating isn't going to fix anything, Alec's very cognizant of that, but it'd be a step in the right direction.

Surrendering, Dean sighs and amends, "All right, fine. I guess I'll go with the bacon cheeseburger, then."

Alec suppresses a grin—not just because the burger was a close second in Alec's own order, but because he imagines the food was a staple in Dean's diet before…whatever happened to him. It's not that hard to picture, really.

"Make it a double," Alec tells Harmony before she departs, and she nods while Alec smirks at Dean. "Dude, we're so not leaving this place till you eat all of it."

"You're worse than Sam," gripes Dean, for possibly the first time since Alec's seen him, not immediately following his brother's name with a downtrodden, world-ending expression.

Alec decides to take it as a compliment. "Suck it up," he says without venom. "I could make you go to a hospital right now, you know. All I'm doing is forcing you to eat a burger. Fair trade, I think."

Dean only replies with a sort of noncommittal grunt, and, as Harmony comes back bearing his and Alec's drinks, quickly takes a deep drag of the cola, the fizzing carbonation soothing his throat. He watches as Alec smugly sips his own drink, and Dean suddenly feels what Sam must have whenever Dean made that face. He's totally fine doing it personally, but seeing it on someone else, on _him_, it's really fucking annoying.

"Yeah, and I can let you hike back to Washington," Dean retorts, fully aware that it's a very weak comeback.

Luckily, Alec is prevented from responding as Harmony returns again, her hands filled with two steaming plates. Alec is pretty sure both orders are significantly larger than they'd ordered—seriously, they consider that a _fourteen_ ounce steak? More like _eighteen_—but hey, he won't complain. He eyes Dean's bacon cheeseburger with a not negligible amount of envy; although he's rather looking forward to his own lunch, the burger _does_ look pretty damn good. Which in itself is a little surprising, given that the restaurant appeared pretty sketchy.

"Anything else I can get you?" Harmony inquires, the words slightly saddled with innuendo, like a last ditch effort, but it isn't like Alec's changed his mind.

"No," he answers. "Thanks." She leaves again, flipping her hair over her shoulder, and Alec happily cuts into the slab of beef on his plate, shoving a large piece into his mouth.

As for Dean, he stares at the burger for a few moments, despite his lack of having eaten in a long while feeling an odd sense of normality with it. Stowing his stalling and admitting silently that it was a good thing Alec had supersized Dean's lunch, he bites into it, some of the hamburger juice and ketchup dripping onto his plate.

He has to hand it to the backwoods diner: they make _damn_ good burgers. Not as good as that seaside shack in Delaware that Dean'll never forget, but still. As he takes a second bite, it's as if his brain realizes it's not been functioning well, and suddenly sends out a flood of hormones, causing Dean's stomach to explode with a hunger that he's not felt since he was in Hell.

Within two and a half minutes, the double bacon cheeseburger is gone, and even Alec's taken a break from eating his own food to stare at Dean's rapid consumption.

"Guess it's a good thing I ordered that large a burger for you, eh?" Alec says amusedly, cutting another piece of beef off his plate.

"Shut up," Dean says through a mouth full of partially masticated food. "I haven't eaten in…forever."

Alec snorts. "You win the prize for exaggeration," he comments.

Dean looks up from taking a drink from his Coke, not seeing the humor. Sure, it hadn't been literally _forever_ since he'd had food, but…well, he considers two millennia as close as you can get. "Whatever," he chooses to reply, the answer neither an agreement nor a contradiction. "We're going now."

Alec lets Dean's reaction go—for the moment—quickly finishes off the last few bites of steak, and then stands up, throwing some bills down on the table that was roughly the amount owed. Alec had calculated it as soon as they'd ordered. He would've made Dean pay, except he has a feeling Dean doesn't have any sort of cash whatsoever, even though he also has a feeling Dean would have accrued some had he the chance in a similar manner that Alec does. That is, hustling pool. (And the occasional pickpocketing, but that's on the down-low, so.)

He can tell Harmony's eyes are on the two of them as they walk out, but considering it's extremely doubtful either, let alone both, of them will ever pass through Pryor, Montana again, Alec doesn't pay it much mind. Let her have her fantasies, he figures. It won't do _them_ any harm.

Dean starts to walk around to the driver's side, but Alec blurs over in front of him, stopping Dean's progress. "Nice try," he says firmly. "You're relegated to shotgun, dude."

Dean's expression morphs to one of anger, but Alec has enough strength over Dean (especially at this point, since Dean's reflexes and body isn't at its peak right now) to manhandle him around to the other side. Realizing Alec's beat him this time, Dean surrenders and gets in the passenger side, though with a fairly large degree of discomfort, resulting from the fact that it's not Sam driving while Dean sits there. It's one thing for Dean to drive while Alec's in the other seat: at least then Dean can pretend easier. But, as Alec peels out of the parking lot and zooms onto I-90 once more, Dean detects just enough of a difference in handling style to make the absence that much more painful.

Not that Alec's a _bad_ driver, per se. In fact, and Dean really shouldn't have been taken off-guard by it, he's quite comparable to Dean's methods, taking turns after a small delay, staying in the furthermost lane and never having more than one hand on the wheel. Usually the left resting lightly on the top, even though in Dean's case, he put his left on there in order to keep his right free to either eat or fiddle with the radio and cassette deck.

Sadly, that last still isn't in effect. Despite Dean's half-hearted try at getting a decent channel, all of the ones he comes across are either crap music, or static. And not the static that would indicate a supernatural presence, either—just plain, no-signal static.

Before too long—Alec would guesstimate about thirty miles—the warmth of the car, full belly, and total body fatigue finally takes its toll, and Dean's head falls against the window, his brain resting in purely natural sleep. Alec wouldn't go so far as to say completely peaceful, but in any event, it isn't induced by chemicals or a blow to the head.

Alec remains driving for a few more minutes, before glancing at Dean again, and then the clock. It isn't like _Alec's_ tired (he's been awake for much longer without needing sleep), but he does know that it sucks balls to fall asleep in an uncomfortable position and then wake up and feel like crap as a result.

Sam can last being incognito to Dean and Alec for a little longer. And Alec's pretty sure that whomever this Bobby person is probably won't be going anywhere for a while, either.

Alec hasn't missed where they are in Wyoming. Though they've just crossed the state line, he knows they've got to be only around a hundred miles from the place Alec never, ever wanted to visit again. Even the name—Gillette—incites threat of being barraged by horrific memories, and a hundred miles in and of itself is kind of too close for comfort.

But he knows he has to suck it up. It's been almost a year since he'd gotten away from the place, and it's past time for him to man up. It was the worst place Alec could ever imagine, but it's gone now, and he's gone from it now, and it shouldn't be affecting him this much anymore.

More than that, he's got pressing matters. They've only been on the road for under two hours, but Alec's set his mind. Pulling off the road after the sign for some place named Ranchester, he's glad to note that they not only have a café of their own, but a motel, too. Which is exactly what Alec had been hoping for.

Dean doesn't awaken as Alec shuts off the car, one of maybe a half dozen vehicles parked in front of the building, and he decides it'd be easier if he gets the room first. Shutting the door quietly, Alec walks purposefully into the motel, and rings the bell on the facsimile of a reception desk. A mousy- and greasy-looking man in his forties comes up behind the desk, studying Alec up and down.

"Whaddya' want?" the man demands in a gravelly, Midwest accent.

Clearing his throat to get over the revulsion, Alec replies, "Uh, one room, two beds."

The man peers over Alec's shoulder, as if he anticipated someone else hiding behind him—by the expression on the guy's face, he suspects a prostitute—but Alec throws down eighty dollars, and the man gives up on the suspicion.

After all, in the present day and age, eighty bucks for one room is a hell of an overpay. The man hands Alec a discolored key labeled with the room number 153, and Alec thanks him, trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. The man retreats back into the office-esque room from which he'd appeared with the four twenties Alec had handed him, leaving his customer alone in the lobby.

Exhaling in a fair bit of perplexity, Alec walks back out to the car with the room key in his pocket and opens Dean's door, vacillating for a couple moments as to how to do this. Sighing as he realizes he's going to have to do a similar performance of his rescuing Dean from White, Alec hauls Dean out of the car. He doesn't plan on carrying him over his shoulder again, and thankfully he doesn't have to, as Dean groggily gains alertness again. Pulling Dean along before he can quite get his bearings, Alec ushers him into the motel.

"What're you doin'?" Dean asks in a voice covered in the haze of sleep. "Where're we?"

"Playboy Mansion," Alec retorts facetiously. "Just come on, dude."

It doesn't take long for Dean to recognize the layout of the environment he'd been familiar with since he can remember. They get into the room by the time Dean actually pushes Alec off him, glaring through bleary eyes.

"What're you doin'? Where'd you take me?" Dean demands again, looking around the room, which already ranks among the worst Dean's seen. "You're supposed to be drivin'."

Alec slams the door shut and tosses the key on the chipped wood nightstand. "Wyoming," Alec responds. "You need sleep, Dean. So do I."

"Liar," Dean accuses, calling Alec's bluff. He doesn't know exactly the scope of the transgenics' abilities, but he's going to call bullshit on Alec needing as much rest as Dean.

"Fine," Alec admits. "But _you_ do. And I'm not going to deal with you being all bitchy and authoritative just because you slept badly. So you know what, we're staying here overnight. Come on, man. Sam and that Bobby guy are going to be there in the morning."

"You don't—"

"I swear I'll knock you out," Alec interjects sharply. "I'm not above it."

Dean doesn't look like he's anywhere close to letting the issue drop, but Alec stands his ground. This, coupled with his literally swaying on his feet exhaustion, causes Dean to give in for the second time that day, and he wearily throws off his shoes, navigates to the bed closest to the door, and collapses on the covers. Alec can't imagine that sleeping in jeans and a bloodied shirt can really be all that comfortable, but the efficient way Dean had laid down suggests he'd gone through the same routine many, many times before.

Chuckling to himself at the absurdity of the day, accompanied by a little worry if Dean's already pushed his body and mind past their capacity, Alec shucks off his own shoes and jacket, flips off the light, and climbs onto the other bed. The sheets smell kind of musty, and Alec really doesn't plan on comprehending the stains on the bedspread, but he does his best to ignore it, and before long, his quiet breathing is in perfect cadence with Dean's.


	24. Chapter XXIII: I Could Still Dream

A/N: Same stuff applies as in the first chapter. Oh, and unfortunately I neither own _Supernatural_ nor _Dark Angel_. Just this.

A/N part two: Just a brief warning: the first part of this chapter gets kind of graphic. So heads up.

A/N part three: Specific episodes of _Supernatural_ mentioned are: "Pilot," "Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things," "All Hell Breaks Loose, Part II," "Dream a Little Dream of Me," "No Rest for the Wicked," "Heaven and Hell," and a few lines from "Wishful Thinking" and "On the Head of a Pin." Specific episodes of _Dark Angel_ mentioned are: "The Berrisford Agenda."

* * *

**Of Desire and the Status Quo**

_**Chapter XXIII: I Could Still Dream, Even in Hell

* * *

**_

_A new day dawns in Hell—December 13, 2047, Dean hazily notes—the weak sun crawling barely past the rippling horizon, casting a sienna glow over the landscape of the Underworld. It's not a particularly terrible landscape, Dean had figured out a few days into his stint here. The first ones were, certainly, being a processing stage of sorts, Dean fastened into it by meathooks through his shoulders while whomever handled the affairs of Hell slowly got around to admitting him. While he waits for his body to regenerate from its marrow-deep burns and the same routine to start once more, his mind flickers back thirty-nine long, sadistic years._

_When the time arises for Dean to be done hanging in that sinister Limbo, a horrific sort of shapeless being appears in front of him, and in eerie silence grasps the hooks and rips them out. Dean falls, and for more moments than he'd like thinks that maybe this is what he was relegated to endure: falling for eternity in an endless pit._

_But it isn't to be—before long, Dean slams into ground, an odd, unearthly amalgamation between cement, packed dirt, and glass. He's bleeding freely from the large chunks taken out of his skin, and he knows his cheekbone is shattered and a couple of ribs are broken or out of place, and really, he has no inclination of getting up._

_Of course, the demons haven't intent of abiding by his wishes. He's on the ground for no more than half a minute before he's flung backwards, his back hitting hard metal. His hands are slammed upwards and his legs are forced apart, wrists and ankles shackled into too-tight chains by an unseen force. He looks up with all the strength of a dying cancer patient, and is presented with some…_thing_ else, though one similar to whatever it was that tossed Dean from the processing down to what he now assumes is Hell proper._

_This one has more shape, he supposes, than the last, the swirling mix of fog and charcoal smoke in the shape of a man, the eyes a burning white. He can only presume that this is a high-ranking demon, judging by the eyes alone. It isn't Lilith, he knows that, yet he has the same color eyes as she does, the same uniform ivory. Dean would prefer the black of normal demons. Hell, he'd prefer yellow ones. At least those sons of bitches he knows how to kill. Ones like Lilith…well. Look how fantastic his attempt to kill _her_ turned out._

"_Dean Winchester_"_ are the first two words the demon utters, although somehow it's not speech, not the way Dean knows. It's more…like the demon's exporting words from somewhere within him, the voice much worse than nails on a chalkboard as its form appears to walk towards him._

_Dean refuses to answer (honestly, he doubts it'd matter in the grand scheme of things), just stares up at the demon with a level of hate that Dean's never felt before. He's hated things in his life, sure, all the otherworldly bastards he's fought, but the rage he feels now squashes those without a second thought. The fury is almost physical, each cell in his body igniting in a rush of pure choler. He can't manage to move any parts of him, not with the way his neurons seem to be neglecting to do their duties, but his facial expressions more than make up for it._

"_We've been waiting a long time for you,_"_ the demon continues, his humorless laugh even crueler and more terrifying than his voice. _"_You've caused a lot of trouble down here, boy._"

"_Happy to help,_"_ Dean spits out finally, blood dribbling from his mouth. _"_Be sure to send me a Christmas letter._"

_The demon chuckles again, walks closer to Dean. _"_I think you'll find it won't be…_prudent_ to run that mouth of yours,_"_ he says. The smoke solidifies to form a sneer on his face, and Dean holds down the fear that's unwillingly coming to the surface. He won't show it, he _won't_. Without a change in expression, the demon puts a hand on Dean's shoulder, pushing down hard on the ripped, raw flesh that was torn open by the hooks. _"_It's not nice to backtalk._"

"_F-Fuck you,_"_ Dean manages, willing his eyes to stop tearing up. He's had more pain than this, really he has._

"_Words hurt, boy,_"_ says the demon, clapping Dean on the shoulder again, before stepping back a pace. _"_But let's not worry about that now. I've got lots of time to cut that tone from your mouth. In fact, how about a little sneak peek…_"

_Dean watches as the demon holds out his hand and a curved knife materializes. The demon looks at it with a fondness that Dean finds thoroughly unnerving, the blade's metal glimmering unnaturally, given the sun's feeble light._

_Smiling this time—and, if possible, that's _even worse_ than anything else thus far—the demon adjusts his hold on the blade, grabs Dean's jaw in his hand to pry it open, and slowly presses the knife into Dean's tongue, not minding that the pointed end of it is also slicing through his cheek. Blood spurts out of Dean's mouth, simultaneously choking him and flooding down his chin, the lingual artery and capillaries bursting open from the force of the demon's hand._

_Dean can't even muster up a scream because the blood is suffocating his esophagus, but his wrists writhe against their shackles, chafing the skin red. When the demon's done, he still has that smile on his face, and Dean's panting, viscous fluid still pouring out of his mouth, the main muscle gone. This time, Dean's pretty sure he's not been in more pain before. He's never had something cut _off_ of him._

"_That's better,_"_ says the demon, peering at the knife coated with Dean's blood with a kind of disdain, like the liquid has disfigured it somehow. _"_Now where were we?_"_ he asks rhetorically, before answering his own question. _"_Ah, right. You've been a real pain in the ass around here. I've got a few friends who'd like to speak with you._"

_As he's literally unable to talk, Dean merely stares at the demon, afraid that if he tries to make a noise, it'll only cause the demon to inflict more harm. Of course, it's not something the demon's considered. To him, it really doesn't have any bearing what Dean says or does at this point. Within seconds, more shapeless forms—these ones with black eyes—walk toward the demon, each of them strapped with a grin of their own. Each of them strapped with a weapon of their own._

_Dean loses track of time after the first few demons cut into him, his mind in a hurricane of unadulterated pain and anguish, and he's no longer responsible for any screams that may erupt from him. His brain is simply no longer connected to anything. He vaguely hears the cackles of the demons and the sluicing of the blades against what he can only assume are his bones and organs, and morbidly wonders just how he's still alive, given that he doesn't doubt they've cut through his spinal cord by now. Then he realizes that, oh wait, he's _already_ dead, and there'd really be no fun in hacking Dean into pieces if Dean weren't awake for it, now would there?_

_He really couldn't tell you how long it is until the demons ultimately halt their assault, but they eventually move away, and from where Dean is now on the floor—the demons had sliced away control of his extremities long ago—the first demon kneels down to look Dean square in the eyes._

"_Oh, you're going to be lots of fun, Dean,_"_ says the demon. _"_You'll have other playmates, but I'll be your primary tour guide for the next eternity. You can call me Alastair._"

_Dean can't speak, can't even fathom the ability to speak at this point._

"_Although, I'll be fair to you,_"_ the demon—Alastair—continues. _"_There is a way you can avoid this messy business from continuing._"_ Dean keeps his eyes open by way of response. Holding out a six-inch, serrated razor like a sick offering, Alastair furthers, _"_I'll make you an offer: I put you back together again like a good little Hell bitch, but in exchange, I'm afraid you'll have to take up a knife or two. You know, rattle around some of my other visitors a bit._"

_Dean gets, finally, what Alastair's proposing. His nerves are literally in pieces, but his morals won't change. _"_Never,_"_ Dean whispers, amazed, honestly, that he can utter anything remotely resembling words. He has a feeling it's Alastair's doing, the temporary skill of speech. _"_You dickless cocksucker._"

_Alastair remains smiling, unruffled by Dean's almost whimpered insult. _"_Have it your way,_"_ he replies, standing up. _"_I'll see you back in class, bright and early Monday morning, Dean._"

_Alastair walks away then, leaving Dean in an unrecognizably disfigured state, abandoning him to only manage three last words:_

"_Sammy…help me._"_

* * *

_

Alec doesn't know why he awakens, but in the middle of a meaningless dream, he suddenly jerks into consciousness, opening his eyes to see darkness. He remembers within a couple seconds just everything that had happened today—yesterday? He checks his watch, which reads 3:39; apparently yesterday, then—and despite the surreality of it, he frowns. He doesn't usually wake for no reason.

He hears mumblings and loud rustlings through the black, and sits up, turning to his right. Adjusting his vision, he sees Dean tossing and turning, in a manner that would twist the sheets like a straitjacket around his body, had he been under the covers. Alec gets up, shaking off the dredges of sleep and languor of his muscles, and walks over to Dean's bed.

He's not entirely certain as to what he should do. From the looks of it, Dean's in a horrible nightmare not dissimilar to the one Alec had had, though obviously worse. Dean's hands are gripping the coverlet with white knuckles, and his face is warped in anguish. His skin is pale and covered in sweat, beads streaming from his temples like his head's on fire and sticking his shirt to his body, hair plastered to his forehead.

Alec hasn't any idea as to what Dean could possibly be dreaming about—maybe those "demons" that he had so crazily brought up?—but he knows it'll be more problematic if he lets Dean ride it out. He knows _he'd_ rather get no sleep than sleep plagued by terror.

Gripping Dean's arms should he try and attack him, Alec shakes him roughly. "Dean!" he hisses loudly. "Dude, wake up."

Dean doesn't respond besides mumbling unintelligible words (well, Alec catches a few "No!"s, but not much else).

"_Dean_," Alec says with more volume. As Dean still doesn't wake up, Alec resorts to a more unpleasant approach. Snatching the ice bucket from the other nightstand, he goes into the bathroom and fills it up with cold water. Standing a few feet away, Alec apologizes quietly before dumping the entire contents on Dean's face and torso.

At first, Alec thinks Dean hadn't noticed that either, but a second later, Dean's eyes snap open, pupils dilated by lack of light. The way they're focused, it doesn't look like he's fully out of the stupor yet, but it's not worryingly long until Dean realizes he's soaked—with water instead of sweat now, mostly—and he looks (glares, really) at Alec. Correctly surmising that if there were an intruder, they probably wouldn't have doused Dean with water from a dodgy motel's ice bucket.

He sits up slowly, resting his back against the headboard. "The fuck you do this for?" Dean accuses, trying to wring out as much water as he can from his shirt, and not really succeeding.

"'What'd I do this for?'" Alec repeats incredulously. "You were one twitch away from seizing, man."

Dean's annoyance fizzles to discomfort, and he clears his throat, trying not to meet Alec's gaze. "You get enough sleep, princess? Can we go now?" he covers, with a gruffer voice than usual.

Alec feels a mix of disappointment and condolence for Dean, chiefly because for some reason, Dean thinks he has to hide whatever it is that's accosting him like the friggin' Plague. Sure, Alec gets it from the perspective that they're both guys, and Dean's got the most masculine pride that Alec's ever seen, but still. He would've thought Dean would crack at some point. Especially because, whether either or both of them refute it, Alec and Dean are pretty damn alike.

Preparing himself for a smackdown, Alec takes a seat by Dean's feet. "Dean, come on," he says, attempting to keep pity out of his expression. "What's the deal with you? Something's up, you can't hide that. And I can't ignore it. Call it my cat persistence or whatever you want, but I'm not just gonna let this slide."

Dean's face is too carefully neutral, like he's trying to visualize Alec's intentions, some of which, Alec ventures a guess, concerning whether he would tell Max or not. Alec wouldn't, but he doesn't think Dean's as positive on that point as he is.

"I can't," Dean says, now meeting Alec's eyes. "I just—I can't."

"I won't tell anyone, if that's what you're worried about," Alec swears.

"It isn't," Dean says, quashing Alec's hope that that was the only barrier. Not like he'd _really_ thought it was, but the hope was there nonetheless. "It's—you wouldn't understand. And I could never make you understand."

Alec wants to violently oppose this, but something in the tone of Dean's words tells him that he's not being overdramatic about it. That there's a possibility Alec really just wouldn't be able to grasp what had happened to Dean. Alec can't, for the life of him, picture what would be out of his imagination, but Dean obviously thinks there's something.

Still, Alec's never been one for giving up, and he's not about to start now. "Try me," he says firmly. "You can't hold this in forever, Dean. Trust me—it'll come back and bite you in the ass if you do."

Rachel's sweet face flashes in his mind, her smile reserved only for him like a beacon of pure innocence and goodness.

It's followed by an explosion whose heat Alec can still feel brushing his skin, and then by a father pushed past the breaking point, holding a gun to the head of the man who, however inadvertently, caused his daughter's coma and subsequent death.

He's willing to tell the story to Dean if he has to, all the details that even Max doesn't know. It's not that he wants to, far, _far_ from it. But if it'll allow some insight into Dean's labyrinth of a mind, Alec's ready to do so. At this juncture, it's not even a function of Alec's curiosity, regardless of what he'd just now told Dean. At this juncture, it's a function of Dean needing to tell someone, to have another person bear the weight that's so blatantly too heavy for his shoulders. Alec's not historically someone who'd go out of their way to help another necessarily (although in more recent times, it's been truer), but Dean's a special case, there's no arguing against that.

"Look," Alec tries again, "I know I'm not Sam, or Bobby, or anyone else you know from whenever before was. I know you don't know me all that well, and you think all I can see is you being some freak Charles Manson knockoff. But man…just let me help. Trust me."

Dean takes in Alec's statements without any grains of salt. He knows that Alec's genuine about wanting to help, in spite of what his exterior or Max's opinion of him would suggest. He knows Alec's interest goes beyond simple intrigue. He knows Alec has come to care for him, and Dean in turn has developed a kind of affinity for the transgenic. Most of all, he knows the expression Alec wears now is exactly the sort of expression Sam wore when he aimed to get Dean to confess something. That wide-eyed, somber-featured, I'm-going-to-stay-totally-silent type of face. Alec doesn't have quite the level of Golden Retriever puppy look yet like Sam had perfected, but it's close enough to Dean's little brother's that he almost tells Alec right then and there, the only thing missing being a picturesque roadside and the Impala.

"I'm sorry," Dean says truthfully.

"If you really think I wouldn't _understand_—"

"It's not only that," Dean intervenes. "Listen…what I saw? There aren't words. There is no forgetting. There's no making it better."

Alec nods in faux comprehension. _What Dean saw? _Alec doesn't even know the context of it. He hadn't thought Dean had served, but maybe he had somewhere overseas? Seen people blown to pieces that would stay in his memory forever? Maybe something had befallen Sam that Dean wants to atone for?

Alec's lost in a sea of confusion and half-truths, completely out of his element.

"Where were you, Dean?" Alec asks. It's a pretty basic question, he thinks, but Dean's pale face suggests it's anything but.

Dean takes a scarily shaky breath, running a hand through still-soaked hair. "Hell," he answers after a long moment, and adding a hollow laugh. "I was in Hell."

Under other states of affairs, Alec would have snorted and called Dean out on yet another exaggeration. But he's seen Dean's sarcastic face before, and he's not wearing it now. Alec doesn't believe in Hell—or Heaven, for that matter—but if Dean's haunted look is any indication, he might as well.

"What do you mean, Hell? Like…pitchforks and fire?" he asks, only able to envision the classic scenes out of Bosch or some such.

Dean laughs again with the farthest thing from humor. "There were pitchforks and fire," he affirms. "But not in what Hell looked like."

Alec's forming a picture in his mind now, and it's a terrible one. There wasn't anything in Dean's words to imply anything beyond a mentally ill patient conceptualizing a false setting, but Alec knows, somehow, that Dean isn't lying. He doesn't know how he knows, but he does.

"What did it look like?" Alec asks, avoiding the elephant in the room in the form of the question _What happened to you?_

"It was…I don't know," Dean pauses, actually in thought and not just fright. "It never really had a full shape, I guess, not from what I could see. I mean, when they switched it, yeah, but when it was normal…it's hard to describe. The setting itself was almost…peaceful, to be honest. Like they were going for the thickest kind of irony. It wasn't like anything I'd ever seen before."

Alec tilts his head in confusion, trying to make sense of Dean's trailing sentences. "When 'they' switched it?"

Dean casts his eyes over to Alec's, taking in the younger man's unusually still and captive state. "You didn't believe me when I told you."

Alec frowns, before coming to the conclusion of what Dean means. "Wait…demons?" he asks. "I thought you were being figurative."

Dean scoffs, finding it hard to even think of explicating demons to Alec. It's one thing to have grown up knowing what they, and all manner of other supernatural beings, are and entail, and to give a CliffsNotes version to some victim of one of them. It's another entirely to try and tell someone who hardly even entertains the idea of demons being _possible_ to exist, let alone describe the ones who had sliced and diced parts of Dean while he was Downstairs.

He then remembers the things Rade had told him when he'd just come out of unconsciousness. The renditions she'd given him of what Manticore was, of what animals the people running it were, of how messed up it made its creations, are the closest things he can think of to a facsimile of Hell. Definitely it wasn't the real thing, and no matter what Rade said or how terrible she depicted it, it isn't anything _close_ to how Hell was, but it's the best example he can give.

"Think Manticore," Dean says, his timbre full of meaning. "But a million times worse."

Alec swallows heavily, unintentionally doing just what Dean had said. Sterile, metal hallways; piercing needles and scalpels; red lasers shooting past the eye to engulf and enflame the thalamus, the center of pain, absolutely; barked orders commanding him to kill, to snipe, to asphyxiate, to bomb; endless trial and error to fix seizures, each attempt more painful than the last; "examples" of what happened if someone mouths off; transgenics in his unit he'd thought of as friends, but whose moralities and personalities had been cut away by Manticore.

Alec looks at Dean, and they both know what Alec envisions.

"You can't get worse than Manticore," Alec says darkly, like he's trying to convince himself of it.

Dean quirks a corner of his mouth and shakes his head. "Rade told me what you went through," he offers. "And it sucked. But it's nothing like Hell."

"Don't fucking patronize me," Alec snarls, forgetting his intent to stay calm and collected. "Manticore _was_ Hell. It's not your fault you don't get it—Ordinaries can't."

Dean clenches his jaw, his lips set in a thin line. "You're right," Dean says. "I don't. But you know what? At least you have people to kiss it and make it all better. At least you've got a whole damn _city_ of people from there. Guess what. I don't. I can't just _get over_ what happened. I can't ever forget it. No matter how much sympathy your precious Max or Cindy or who the fuck ever else tries to lay on me."

Alec tries to rein in his temper again. "That's why you want to find Sam, isn't it?" he asks, the answer dawning on him. "Because Sam can understand."

Dean shrugs, and his entire face is filled with a desperation, a longing, a need to find his brother. Alec had gotten it exactly right—while Dean would want to find Sam anyway, just to see him, it's more than that. In this alien environment, where Dean doubts people would recognize a demon attack even if they saw one because of how preoccupied they are with being all third-world, there's no one that could comprehend Dean's history. He doesn't doubt there's hunters still stationed in numerous parts of the country, but the odds that they'd know him personally are practically zero. Even less of a chance that they'd actually aid him.

Sam's the _only_ one that Dean is sure can help him cope. Bobby would try his best, but…it just wouldn't be the same. Sam's…Sam's his _brother_. His _baby brother_. And even though Dean's been Sam's protector for as long as he was alive, Dean knows Sam would do the same for him if Dean would allow it. The few times he had—Dad's death; Dean's fear of what his deal really meant; even Dean coming to get Sam at Stanford just because he was in too much pain of being without any family—Dean hadn't exactly felt _better_ about the whole thing, but in the sense that he knew that Sam would always be there, hell yes, he did.

It's true that Sam had changed ever since he learned that Dean had sold his soul in order for Sam to live again, that Sam had become obsessed 'til the end, 'til the Hellhounds dragged Dean out of the living world and into the dead-but-not-dead.

But Dean doesn't care about that now, almost can't believe he ever had cared, given what he's suffered. Now that Dean's finally out, he needs to get to Sam. Needs to see his little brother. Needs to see the one thing in his life that's always been someone he could trust it to and trust to not make snap judgments on him. Alec's fine and all, and Dean's sure the kid means well, but he's just…

He's not Sam.


	25. Chapter XXIV: When Worlds Collide

A/N: Same stuff applies as in the first chapter. Oh, and unfortunately I neither own _Supernatural_ nor _Dark Angel_. Just this.

A/N part two: Mua ha ha on the cliffhanger. =D

A/N part three: Specific episodes of _Supernatural_ mentioned are: "Dead in the Water," "Croatoan," "Playthings," "Roadkill," "Heart," and an Ellen-ism from "Good God, Y'all." Specific episodes of _Dark Angel_ mentioned are: "Brainiac."

* * *

**Of Desire and the Status Quo**

_**Chapter XXIV: When Worlds Collide

* * *

**_

Dean retreats into himself again as he's overcome with internal musings Alec is far from privy to, and even when he comes out of the thoughts, he can't bring himself to confide in Alec any more than he already has. Which, judging by Alec's thoroughly confused workings, isn't a whole hell of a lot.

But there's no use in trying to coax Dean out of it, Alec's figured that much out so far. Both knowing neither will sleep one wink at this point, Alec shuts off the light and Dean turns on his side, facing the wall away from Alec. Alec lies on his back, staring up at the ceiling with a hand on his stomach, idly wondering what everyone back in Terminal City is doing. He still hasn't talked to Max (last time he checked his cell, the missed calls count was at eleven), but she hasn't called in a while, either, so he's narrowed it down to her being too preoccupied with something else to bother with getting a hold of him again, she's sent out a search party for him (fat chance), or she concluded that Alec's with Dean and just fine.

In a manner of speaking.

The hours pass phenomenally slowly, the musty smell of the motel and nauseating sounds of fornication from the room across the hall amplified with Alec's increased senses. He doesn't know how Dean's faring, but he sincerely doubts the guy's having much more luck. He's probably used to the odors and noises of seedy lodging, but he's also probably trapped within the confines of his own mind, which likely is worse. It doesn't make _Alec_ feel better, but there you have it.

When the sun finally breaks on the Cowboy State horizon and a half dozen or so birds begin chirping, the clock flashing 6:44 in bright blue numbers, Alec can't take it anymore. Getting off the bed stiffly and stretching his arms above his head, he ambles into the bathroom and turns on the shower. He suspects the water is straight from the nearest river, and the pipes may be rusty (not that in recent months that's been abnormal), but the temperature is scalding the way he likes—and, good Lord, he hasn't had a warm shower since he lived in Brain's apartment—and as he steps under the spray, he does his best to shut out all outside stimuli. It doesn't work very well, but it gives Alec something better to concentrate on than anything else so far.

For Dean's part, ache is all he feels. The aspirin and vodka had long since worn off, and his pain receptors are very much back in effect, with renewed vengeance. He knows the upcoming drive would be filled with awkwardness, the unfortunate backfiring of Dean starting to tell Alec about Hell. He caught Alec's disappointment when Dean withdrew from him, Alec wishing most likely that Dean would just allow Alec to be the confidant that both know he needs. And Dean feels bad, truly he does, but he can't help but push him away. For Alec's sake, he hopes that after he sees Sam, he won't be as frigid to the X5. God willing. (Pardon the phrase.)

Worse than that, though, is his shoulder injury returning quite vocally. It isn't like the rest of his body, that dull pulsating discomfort, but rather more exacerbated than yesterday. Which, in Dean's experience, unless it's a fever breaking, pain getting steadily heightened never bodes well. He doesn't know if it's just the unrepaired injury by itself or if the wound had gotten infected or something else entirely, but he does know that he has to get it looked at.

He thinks it can wait until they get to Bobby's, though. And while Bobby won't be able to patch it up himself—the guy's practically a walking encyclopedic House, but he's not omniscient—but Sioux Falls is a large city, and Dean knows there's a hospital there. Given Bobby, the man probably already has a reputation there. At the very least, faked insurance and ID that Dean can use. He doesn't know how he's going to explain Alec's presence to Bobby, but he'll cross that bridge when he gets to it.

Dean can hear the shower running, and billows of steam escaping underneath the doorframe, the empty bed next to him signaling Alec's foray into the shower. Dean had heard the kid trying to get comfortable the whole night—post almost-confession, that is—and he felt bad since he was the cause of it, but he honestly had assumed that Alec would be able to sleep just about anywhere and anytime. Dean's never liked cats, and he's never had one, but he knows they're prone to plopping down wherever they feel like it and snoozing the hours away.

But Alec's not, so Dean takes the brief moments that he's out from under his microscope, and takes a deep breath, the stale air in the room like an old friend. A really unsanitary old friend, but who's splitting hairs? If he closes his eyes, he can almost envision the rickety table loaded down with multiple guns in various states of cleaning and deconstruction, maps spread out on the bedspread, Sam hunched over uncomfortably at his computer. He's perfected this particular art over his years in Hell; oftentimes, it was the only thing that could help dissociate his mind from his body. He's a little bemused his intense psychological strain hadn't made him dissociate permanently, create another personality, but chalks it up to the fact that he can barely handle _one_ of him in his head at a time, let alone two or more.

The illusion is shattered when Alec shakes Dean's shoulder firmly but carefully. Dean opens his eyes, blinks a few times, and looks over to see Alec already dressed, and towel drying his hair. Dean avoids his gaze and walks past him into the bathroom, itching to reach South Dakota and the person who's the closest thing he has to a father.

* * *

According to the car's clock, it's only been three hours, but Alec's already _this close_ to disproving the theory that you can't die from boredom; the fact that he's driving and not sitting in the passenger seat doesn't help even a little bit. Only three hours may have elapsed, but in Road to the Badlands time, it might as well have been twenty. Dean seems just fine, if amused at Alec's frustration, the only possible fidgeting he does coming simply from anticipation of seeing his surrogate parent, and perhaps his shoulder.

"Favorite vacation," Dean offers, starting the game that he and Sammy would occasionally play when they were younger. Dean thinks it'll be more interesting with Alec, considering that Dean basically knew all of Sam's answers. Being in the same proximity to someone for twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred sixty-four days out of the year would do that to you.

Alec snaps his head over, like he's skeptical Dean's really asking him that question. But, really, what else is there to do? Count tumbleweeds? He thinks back, somewhat depressingly realizing the only "vacations" he's had are the ones to locales for Manticore missions. He'll just try to ignore the killing parts if he can.

"Mont Saint-Michel," Alec answers finally, his accent, predictably, flawless. "It's an island north of Normandy, pretty awesome."

"What'd you do there?" Dean asks.

Alec stiffens, trying to assure himself that Dean hadn't realized the weight of his words. But, he relents, there's already enough discomfort between them. He doesn't want there to be more. "I killed the sightseeing CEO of a genetics research firm from a thousand meters away."

Dean's mute for a few moments, obviously regretting asking the question. "Sorry, man," he says. "I didn't know." Alec shrugs it off, grunting in dismissal. "If it makes you feel better, I missed shooting a werewolf from _ten yards_ away once."

Blinking at the absurdity of Dean's statement, he peruses his face for signs of falsehood, but it's not there. Smirking maybe, but no falsification. "You're crazy," he says with conviction.

"It's been said," replies Dean as if the phrase had been uttered a million and one times before. "Listen…you know it's not your fault, right? I mean, you'd'a been killed if you hadn't shot that guy."

Alec gives Dean a small smile, truthfully grateful at the effort. "Sure as hell doesn't feel like that," he replies, looking down at his hands and seeing blood that isn't there. "That guy didn't do anything wrong."

Dean switches his gaze from out the window to Alec, recognizing the twisted features as the same ones he's had many instances before, even before he'd gone to Hell and not had the incidents shoved in his face (literally). The one of acknowledging that committing the dirty deeds was your job, yet it doesn't make the emotional repercussions any less, or make you feel any better. It doesn't even help to get completely forget-your-name, bang-the-ugliest-girl-in-the-bar, swaying-beyond-belief plastered. Dean knows. He's tried.

Alec hadn't had to see a child nearly drowned by a supernatural creature because of someone's fatal mistake, he hadn't had to listen to his brother execute a woman he loved, and he hadn't had to go through the turmoil of emotions and morals to determine whether or not to kill someone because he might have a demonic virus in him. But, in some ways, what Alec had had to do was worse. At least Dean hadn't been under threat of death by the people who raised him if he didn't slaughter his target. At least he knew he wouldn't be physically abused if he'd left a woman to haunt a freeway and didn't tell her she was dead.

Not that Alec would've had to do any of that otherworldly stuff, but the point still holds. And Dean'll be damned—again—if he doesn't help Alec see that. God knows Sam had done that a hundred times over.

"I'd say we could just go get hammered, but somehow I don't think that would cure any of the guilt you got going on," Dean says, not understanding the chuckle of irony that Alec gives.

"I can't get drunk anyway," he explains. "Damn metabolism is great for keeping fit, but total shit for days that really, _really_ require a keg, let me tell you."

Dean laughs in sympathy, feeling it's an appropriate, yet inappropriate, reaction. The lightness fading, he hits Alec's arm. "Seriously, man," he says, his tone getting Alec to look solemnly at him and away from the road for probably longer than is wise. Dean senses the significance of the attention, the same significance he'd sense when Sam was in need of older brotherly assurance. It fortifies Dean a little.

"You can't take these things home with you, 'specially when you actually got a home—kinda. You seem like a decent kid, and you don't deserve what you're goin' through. I'm not going to lie to you, it doesn't get much better, but think of the good you're doing _now_…it's what got me through most days."

"Yeah? What good is it that I'm doing now? Far as I'm told, I'm the biggest fuck-up to ever darken the streets of Seattle," Alec says bitterly.

Scorning in rebuke, Dean shakes his head vehemently. "That what that Max chick tell you?" he asks accurately, Alec sinking back in his seat by way of response. "The way I see it, sounds like it's just some kind of backlash; you're the guy she can vent to and knows will stand his ground. For what it's worth, I don't think you're a fuck-up."

It's silence that greets Dean, but Alec takes his words to heart, absorbing them like they're gospel. He's never really had someone to comfort him, as it were, and although Alec's afraid that he's turning too soft, too needy, he can't help but be affected by Dean's comfort. They may be nearly identical in terms of genes and appearance, but when it comes down to what truly matters, Alec has to admit that Dean's the only one out of the two of them to have the older sibling devotion thing down. He has a shrewd suspicion Dean would possess that kind of trait even if he didn't have a younger brother, yet that same suspicion surmises that having Sam (even if not at the present time) only intensifies that compassion.

"You're a good guy, Dean," Alec says quietly, glancing at Dean again in gratitude. "Thanks."

Dean only gives him a lopsided smile, but inside, his heart warms for the first time in over two thousand years. And he doesn't regret that it's Alec who engendered it instead of Sam. He doesn't.

Really not wanting more dead air to ensue—damn it, now even Alec wants that stupid radio to get its ass in gear—Alec clears his throat. "Okay, so…what's the story on this guy?" he asks, simultaneously trying to decide whether it's the heat off of the asphalt that's making the road ahead ripple, or if he's been staring at that road and squinting into the sun so long that his eyes are the ones making weird shapes. He's still marinating on that one.

"Who, Bobby?" Dean inquires with a chuckle. "That could fill books, kid."

"I have a _name_," Alec mutters huffily. "It's not going to kill you if you use it, you know."

Dean, looking very much like he'd like to laugh, merely quirks a grin. "Hey, it took Sam years to grow out of it, so you know what, you're going to have to wait a while until you get your name back."

Alec's mouth is open to give a scathing reply before he acknowledges what Dean's doing. "That's cold, dude," he says, realizing Dean's whole intent was to get a rise out of him. "And totally juvenile. Jeez, you're thirty. Grow up."

Dean begs to differ. "_Twenty-nine_," he iterates, acting as if there's a huge discrepancy. "'M only twenty-nine."

"What happened to that Hell crap?"

Alec instantly regrets the flippancy of his words, but Dean doesn't act on it. For the moment at least, he's done with any upcoming chick flick moments, and by God, he's not going to devolve into a pile of snot and tears every time Hell is mentioned. That won't do him any good, in _any_ universe.

"Doesn't count," Dean replies lightly, kindly ignoring Alec's soft sigh of relief. "Do over."

"Cop out."

"What are _you_ complaining about?" Dean grouses. "You've got _that_ face goin' on, and you're whining about it? Priorities, man."

Alec can't decide whether to be insulted at Dean's ego, or feel complimented. His brain's trying to work through which one would be less Freudian. "All right, first of all, it's kind of hard to think about _that_ when there's real slim pickings and your life is constantly in danger," Alec replies. "I'm telling you, I had more luck before Max started that little venture of hers. All work and no play makes Alec a dull boy."

Raising an eyebrow at Alec's grumpiness, Dean reaches down and grabs the bottle of heavy whiskey that Alec had somehow missed him nick. "So why do you stick around, then?" he asks curiously, swigging some of the alcohol before holding it out to Alec. "I mean, even before that government interference crap, you didn't have to, right?"

Alec shifts a little in his seat, all of a sudden uncomfortable with the topic and really wishing he could retcon on his previous statement. He takes a drink from the proffered whiskey before replying, "Would I totally lose my manhood if I said I'm really bad self-company?"

Dean regards Alec for a second or two. "Only some. To your credit, Max is a good-looking girl."

He doesn't mention the fact that it was he who had driven almost twenty-five hundred miles from New Orleans to Palo Alto to get Sam, whom he hadn't talked to in two years, with the excuse to find John and the Yellow-Eyed Demon (an excuse on which he thoroughly thought Sam would call bullshit), when really he was just sick and tired of being alone, and so sue him if he just wanted his little brother alongside him.

No, he doesn't mention that fact. Chiefly seeing as how he already knows the way Alec looks at him with pity in his eyes because of Dean's nightmares, and he doesn't want to have sissy tacked on there as well.

"Sure," Alec responds, like the good-looking part of it was an afterthought. "No, I dunno. It just seemed like the least destructive idea at the time."

Dean senses this isn't the half of it, that there's an underlying reason—or at least a longer story to the one Alec had said—for staying. But he doesn't press; he'd be the biggest hypocrite in the world if he did. And yeah, he could play the my-dick-is-bigger-than-yours card with his "I was in Hell" as opposed to Alec's "I wanted a de facto family," but Dean's not _that_ big of a douche. Not right now, anyway.

"Yeah, well, if you're serious about it, don't stay away for too long," says Dean hollowly. Alec flicks his eyes over at the new tone, to see Dean's expression just as empty as his voice, obviously reminiscing over some memory he'd rather forget.

It's an easy enough one to deduce, though, especially with what Alec had found out. "You're talking about Sam," he says, more in the form of a statement. Dean just takes the shared liquor bottle from Alec and drinks. "I heard about you guys, you know, before now. I just hadn't remembered."

Dean looks over, the obvious question in his face.

"When I was sent out on…_jobs_," Alec amends, carefully sidestepping the real purpose behind those them, "I'd heard stuff about you and Sam. They talked about you reuniting in '05 after years of discord or whatever."

Dean chuckles. "You got some memory," he remarks complacently, wondering if he himself would have remembered stuff like that. He doesn't have an answer for it. "They kinda abbreviated it, though. Shoulda known Sammy was going to jump ship soon 's he could. Didn't think _college_, but you know."

"Everyone said Sam was the brains of your guys' operation," Alec says with a small frown. Yes, he distinctly remembers that. Sam was the brains, Dean was the brawn. Admittedly, they both did okay in the opposite areas, but that's always how Alec had heard it described.

"Really? _Everyone_?" Dean asks in disgruntlement, thoroughly dissatisfied with Alec's response. "Just 'cause Sam went to friggin' _Stanford_…"

"You think that was a bad decision?"

Unsure of how he wants to proceed, Dean takes another sip of mind-numbing alcohol. "Yeah…no…I mean, Sam deserved to go to college," he fumbles, wincing. "It's just—never mind."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait," Alec says firmly, wishing he weren't somewhat undermining his tone with the fact that he can't look at Dean for too long before the car would veer off the freeway. Not that they'd really be crashing into anything besides corn—and what a rarity _that_ is in this part of the States—but Alec doesn't exactly _want_ to crash. "What are you talking about? Why wouldn't you want Sam to go to school?"

"I told you, he did deserve to," Dean says again, eyes dead set on the horizon.

Alec's not buying it for a second, and this is one instant where Dean wishes his DNA weren't so coded with perception that it transversed over to Alec. Who, _by all means_, just had to have it enhanced beyond normality. "Don't give me that," Alec persists. "You totally don't. Come on, man, fess up. What inferiority complex thing you got going on?"

"I don't have any complexes," Dean rebukes reflexively, pretty much staking claim in precisely what Alec had said. Dean doesn't say anything else at first, and considering Alec can't just stare at him for an uncomfortably long amount of time until he talks, he goes for socking him in the arm. He'd go for the shoulder, but he isn't that mean. "You hit me one more time and I'll kick your ass out of this car. You can hitch your way back to Seattle."

Alec grumbles an assent.

"Look, Sam _did_ deserve it, I'm not reneging on that," Dean says with vindication. "It's just…I don't know. I think it woulda been nice to see what all the hype was about is all."

"You wanted to go to school?" Alec asks, carefully keeping all surprise out of his voice. Truthfully, Dean hadn't really struck him as the Joe College type.

"I thought about it," Dean says, abridging comprehensively. He doesn't feel he's quite buddy-buddy with Alec enough to tell him about all the applications he'd sent into numerous universities, including the Ivy Leagues. Honestly, he'd expect a snort of some kind from the transgenic, and he just doesn't want to hear it. "Didn't work out. No big deal."

Despite Dean's attempts at concealment, Alec sees right through it. The clenched jaw, the pursed lips, the staring straight ahead…fuck yeah, Dean had wanted to go off to college. Alec knows the look of regret and longing. He's seen it multiple times in the mirror; there's no way he could mistake it for something else.

"That sucks, man," he says levelly, unfortunately also knowing Dean isn't much for the apology thing. "Sorry."

"You didn't do anything."

No, he didn't, but… Alec's not sure exactly how to approach this kind of thing, not just because he still doesn't know much about Dean and Sam—from their mouths, anyway—but because he doesn't know much about the whole college thing. Manticore had made their creations with superior intellect that any higher education institution would be falling over themselves to have, but it's not like Manticore had _encouraged_ them to go to _school_. They instead intended it for espionage and subterfuge, their brilliant minds to be put to criminal and completely inhumane acts. Alec was one of the lucky ones, in that he didn't trust Manticore in the least, but most of the others weren't so fortunate. True blue soldiers until the end.

Alec pitied them, but it wasn't like he could lead a revolution against Manticore. Especially not after the '09ers escaped. Manticore had tightened their already locked down security until their prisoners could hardly go to the bathroom without being escorted by a half dozen guards. It wouldn't matter if Alec had wanted to attend a university or some sort of Ordinary desire like that even if he'd wanted to. Calling for "radio silence" on a mission didn't do anything—Manticore didn't disable their comms, just stayed quiet. Alec had had to learn to have no modesty in the least in order to maintain a sane mind.

Seriously. Getting it on with the senator's daughter as per new mission parameters while his bosses were listening? _So_ not conducive to being "in the moment."

"Regardless," Alec says, coming out of his dismal recollections. "You shoulda been able to do what you wanted."

Dean looks over and smiles, the gesture void of all humor, geniality, and totally saturated with misery. "Looks like neither of us got the long straw."

Alec, much as he'd like to refute that statement, can't.

* * *

Max glares at her dented cell phone with a type of petulant fury, the intensity of it high enough to where the phone just might ring like she wishes it to. It doesn't, however, the gray screen staying gray and not lighting up with the phrase "Alec calling." Generally, she wouldn't welcome any more contact with the X5 than necessary, but when said X5 just up and leaves with his maybe-clone without so much as a "See ya, Maxie," yeah, she would like a little heads up, thanks. It's not even so much that she wants to know _where_ they went; more _why_. It's not like, last time she checked, they were real bosom buddies.

Max would like to speak with him because of what they've been doing, but, to be frank, she can't seem to find the words that she'd want to say to him anyway. What, "Get your ass back here"? He doesn't listen to her when he's down the hall. Why would he listen to her from quite possibly multiple _states_ away? And as an extension to _that_, where in God's name would they have gone?

Whatever she may say of Alec's childishness, she'll readily admit the guy's not stupid. An idiot, maybe, but not stupid. She can't believe that he'd make such a huge decision as bailing on T.C. to go chill with Dean without having massively convincing grounds for doing it. She's called him more times than she cares to admit, and he hasn't answered her. Which means, as far as she can tell, he's either ignoring her because he's a wimp, or else something bad had happened to him. Possibly him _and_ Dean.

The former option doesn't have her worried very much; she would expect him to blow her off. But the second option…so what if she's worried about them? Alec's training is as good as hers, Dean's isn't too shabby by its own right, and she's about ninety-five percent sure Dean wouldn't try and actually hurt Alec, but the worry is still there. What if White had followed them somehow? What rituals or torture would he inflict upon the both of them if he knew they're doubles? What if the cops or feds had found them?

Dean was before most of their times, but they could find it out easily enough. They wouldn't even have to hack into records. Then they'd have not only Dean Winchester—which would cause enough of a ruckus as it is, and probably a manhunt for Sam, too, if there's any left of Sam to find—but a transgenic as well. Not just any transgenic, though, as Max's luck would have it: one of two _leaders_ of the transgenics.

It would put all of their lives in jeopardy, and she knows without a doubt that Alec especially wouldn't have a snowball's chance of surviving for very long before he had some "cerebral edema." Natural causes and all that. What the fuck ever. She doesn't think Dean would have much better chances than Alec, to cap off a thoroughly shitty scenario. In fact, they'd probably kill Alec on the six o'clock news, making sure Max saw it, and then dangle Dean like some sort of sick bait for her. They'd know she'd want to save him, but of course that would sic her against her people; what, she was willing to save Dean, but wouldn't avenge Alec? Great PR there.

Max frustratedly runs her hand through ragged hair, willing her brain to stop overreacting. What is she thinking? They're just fine. Probably kicking it over a few beers, recounting their respective histories. Alec most likely imbuing Max with more bitchiness than she actually has, Dean most likely…er…something having to do with ghosts, she supposes. She doesn't believe in them, but she's sure Dean's got enough charisma to make Alec think so. And if she follows _that_ train of confusing thought, she thinks Alec's got enough of his own charisma to make Dean confide in him what his nightmares are about.

Which _would_ be a good thing, except she has a sinking feeling that in no time Dean and Alec would develop a camaraderie to the point of being unwilling to divulge the other's secrets to, for example, her. And that would not only put her in an unsavory position of not knowing, but she'd also have to deal with the two of them sharing _neener-neener_ glances and identical smirks. Her nerves are already shot with just Alec's—would she be able to handle _two_? The way her life is going, Dean's would infuriate her more, since he's got at least eight more years of refining it than Alec.

Christ.

* * *

Once they pass the sign that's got three bullet holes in it bearing proudly the words _Great Faces. Great Places._, it's about four hours of the complete opposite of a picturesque landscape. Dean doesn't say much, glancing despondently every once in a while toward the radio, like it'll magically decide to harness classic rock from thirteen years ago and start blasting through the speakers. It doesn't.

The quietude isn't…_uncomfortable_, per se, Alec muses, more of a companionable kind of mutual pondering of life, but in the wasteland that's the Great Plains, Alec would like some sort of entertainment. In fact, he'd be willing to start up the game Dean had attempted, even if it meant rehashing some more of his assassinations, but he doesn't bring it up. For the main reason that he can tell the closer they get to their destination, the more anxious Dean gets. Alec doesn't think it's necessarily nerves over actually seeing his friend, more so that he's apprehensive of what the guy's reaction would be.

Which, you know, understandable. Alec wouldn't blame the man if he passed out right as he saw Dean. (He doesn't know that Bobby's not the kind of person who'd pass out because of a huge surprise, but.) Alec himself is a little edgy, come to think of it. Yeah, he doesn't know Bobby, but from the way Dean had referred to him, Alec bets dollars to donuts that Bobby would recognize Alec's face, recognize that, holy _shit_, Dean's got a younger clone. Alec's _not_ a clone, but it's a technicality he doubts Bobby would care about.

Alec hadn't thought he'd been mulling over things for very long, but he's snapped out of it when Dean suddenly speaks up. "Take this exit," he says, and Alec blinks through his haze to see the sign indicating the direction to Sioux Falls.

He's a little startled, but takes the exit anyway, getting off I-90 for the first time in a long time. Of course, the exit only takes them onto I-229, another freeway, but hey, it's progress. Thankfully for Alec, however, even on that road they don't have to be on it for long.

For the next fifteen or so miles, Dean gives Alec directions as if he'd gone to Bobby's just yesterday and not over a decade (more like over a hundred and fifty decades) ago, only stumbling once or twice when he notices some of the street signs hung off-kilter, or the road swerves in a different direction. Ultimately, Alec pulls the car alongside what looks like a salvage yard of sorts, a rusty sign hanging above the entrance with words Alec can't quite make out through the corroded metal.

Alec looks at Dean, whose face is placid for…well, the very first time Alec's ever seen it. Alec rolls the car through the archway, coming to a stop a few dozen yards from the dilapidated house. He can tell that Dean notes the state of disrepair, but in this day and age, it's far from unusual to see houses left to decay from lack of funds, or time, or simple motivation.

Getting out of the car, both boys slam their doors shut and walk up to the front door, the wood slightly rotted, but usable enough. Dean shoots Alec a quick glance, like he's grateful to have someone there—though, true to form, it goes away almost immediately—and then raps his knuckles on the entry, standing back a couple feet. Alec wonders if Dean's afraid Bobby would take a swing at him, and conjectures it's probably pretty spot on.

A good number of seconds pass, which are incidentally synonymous with the tensest seconds Alec's ever experienced, when finally, _finally_ the handle turns and the door opens.


	26. Chapter XXV: Long, Long Way From Home

A/N: Same stuff applies as in the first chapter. Oh, and unfortunately I neither own _Supernatural_ nor _Dark Angel_. Just this.

A/N part two: Specific episodes of _Supernatural_ mentioned are: "All Hell Breaks Loose, Part II," and vaguely "Phantom Traveler." Specific episodes of _Dark Angel_ mentioned are: none.

* * *

**Of Desire and the Status Quo**

_**Chapter XXV: Long, Long Way From Home

* * *

**_

Behind the rotting door stands a man, roughly late-sixties—though it's hard to tell through the gray-brown mop of hair, scars upon scars on his face, and slightly stooped stature—who doesn't have to look far up to Dean and Alec in order to look them in the eyes. He wears a baseball hat, a logo on the front that's too faded to tell the design of, and his clothes have seen better days, the vest and overalls well worn, like the house.

The man doesn't say anything at first, but Dean fills the void. "Bobby?" he asks, the expression on his face not quite a smile just yet, but edging into the—dare Alec think it?—territory of happiness. Or at least hopeful contentment.

Dean obviously had expected a more adverse reaction, and a frown starts to migrate into his face. "Who you talkin' 'bout, boy?" the man grinds out roughly, his voice gravelly. "There ain't no Bobby here."

To watch Dean's face fall is one of the most heartbreaking things Alec's ever witnessed. He'd never known who the Bobby guy was that Dean'd talked about, but he'd seen the significance in Dean's mannerisms. Finding out that the man in Bobby's house isn't the man Dean had anticipated…Alec can't imagine what it'd feel like. Though he has an idea, given how Dean looks now.

"What…" Dean stumbles, taken so far aback he actually looks faint. "What do you mean?"

"You deaf?" the man grumbles. "Don't know no Bobby."

"The man who had this house…"

A vague recognition passes over the owner, and he scratches his head briefly. "That ol' coot?" he asks rhetorically. "Last I hear, he snuffed it. Got this ol' thing offa auction."

Dean can't seem to say anything to this, so Alec steps in. "Sir, all due respect, he's" here, Alec gestures to Dean, "family. Hasn't seen Bobby in a long time, wants to make amends and all that. You sure you don't know anything else?"

The owner laughs, the sound like tires crunching over loose rocks. "Kiddo, I ain't never seen 'im," he says. "You migh' wanna check out a graveyard 'round here. Prob'ly in the ground there. If he gots any other family." Alec swallows, not wanting to glance over at Dean. The man turns irritated. "Now get offa my prope'ty. Hooligans…"

Before Alec can reply, the man shuts the door with a firm snap, a few pieces of wood separating themselves from the rest, and Alec has a strong feeling he wouldn't open the door again even if Alec knocked until his knuckles were bloody. It doesn't matter that Alec could break down the door in less than a second; he's extremely well-versed in telling if people are being truthful, and, grim as the man's statement was, he hadn't been lying.

Bolstering himself, Alec turns to Dean, the face that had previously been like a little boy's now morphing back into what it had been when Alec had first seen it. Battle-torn, world-shattered, horror behind every corner, even his mind not safe…

"Dean," Alec says lowly, putting a hand lightly on his shoulder. "There's nothing more we can do here."

"It's _Bobby_, Alec," says Dean, and Alec mutely registers how Dean had used his real name, and wishes he hadn't, because if the circumstances surrounding it had to be these, he'd rather go for "kid" for the rest of his life. "He's invincible." Alec can't find any words to help Dean out, so instead guides him back to the old Mustang once more.

Dean doesn't speak as they get back in the car, and Alec doesn't do anything either. They simply sit in the hot leather seats, Alec on the driver's side and not sure what to do, Dean in the passenger and in a kind of shocked state. Alec doesn't blame him, not in the least, although he does wish Dean would talk to him. Not that he's one for the girly moments either, but come on. He already has virtually no insight into the guy's mind; he doesn't need even more stonewalling.

"Dean," Alec starts hesitantly, looking over at his double. "You wanna get out of here? Keep driving?"

Alec's afraid Dean won't answer him, and instead of returning Alec's gaze, continues staring out the window at the barren landscape. "Not yet," he replies hoarsely. "The cemetery. Please."

Alec would have abided by Dean's desires even if he hadn't added the "please" to the end, and, wishing he didn't have to see Dean this way, Alec peels out of the driveway, putting the house that Dean had once known so well and now had betrayed him in one of the worst ways possible to the rearview, the wheels soon hitting paved cement.

As it turns out, there are multiple cemeteries in the city—Alec feels he should have expected this, considering Sioux Falls is the largest city in South Dakota—so he pulls off the road and dials the number that would connect him to the Department of Public Health. The receptionist who answers the phone sounds like she'd rather be dead (pardon the pun) than be answering Alec's call, but gives him the location and plot number. She says there was no casket, only a tombstone, and Alec finds this odd, plans to ask Dean about it at a later juncture, but he thanks her anyway and drives out to Mount Pleasant Cemetery, thinking the name completely inappropriate.

It doesn't take them long to find the corresponding grave, the marble but surprisingly small stone engraved with the words:

ROBERT SINGER

1950-2018

_OMNIS FALLACIÆ, LIBERA NOS, DÓMINE_

Dean reads the epitaph in silence, before giving a somber chuckle. Alec regards him curiously. "There something funny?"

"'_Omnis fallaciæ, libera nos, Dómine_,'" Dean says, his recitation perfect, and as if Alec should know both what it means and the significance.

"What does it mean?"

"'Of every deceit, free us, Lord,'" he replies. Turning then to look at Alec, his face for a moment indecisive, he gives an indecipherable smile. "It's part of the _Rituale Romanum_. An exorcism."

Alec doesn't really want to speak ill of the dead, let alone someone Dean cares about, but he's a little unsure about a few things. "Wait…Bobby was exorcised?"

Dean almost manages to glare. "Of course not," he replies flatly. "It's—it's a sacrament, basically. It's an exorcism, but…the words are meant to be a purity sacrament, to get rid of the demon. And…and Sammy would have put it up as last rites."

His questions growing larger and larger, including how Dean is so certain it was Sam who had inscribed the words, Alec throws caution to the wind and sets himself up for more. "I suppose you have an answer for why there wasn't even a casket buried?"

"He would have been salted and burned on a pyre," Dean answers, in the same tone of voice one might have discussing breakfast. (Albeit a very depressing breakfast.) "It's what hunters do when another dies. It puts their spirits to rest."

Alec knows Dean's just lost someone extremely close to him, and Alec had thought Dean wasn't mentally psychotic, just had killer nightmares, but…salting and burning people? Hunters? Putting spirits to rest? He wonders if maybe he'd made a snap judgment at some point that really shouldn't have been so snap.

"A pyre," Alec repeats tonelessly, imagining a huge inferno with a corpse in the center. "Isn't that kind of what crematoriums are for?"

"You don't let a hunter go out in a _crematorium_," Dean seethes, like Alec had just gone into a church and sang George Carlin's signature song. "Jesus, kid."

"'M sorry," Alec mumbles, feeling like he's treading water and very close to drowning. "Manticore didn't exactly have 'Hunter Funerals 101' on its repertoire."

Dean takes a deep breath, running a hand over his face, the dimming sunlight casting shadows that make his features stand out in more relief than usual. "I keep forgetting you don't know about this," he says, shoving his hands in his pockets. "It's just the way you _act_…"

The words _like me_ aren't uttered, but they're present in the air between them. Alec isn't certain whether he should feel complimented or uncomfortable at this; whether he should be grateful that Dean had stopped seeing Alec as a freak clone and rather like a hunter (whatever _that_ means), or whether he should take Dean's "the way you _act_" as a jibe.

"It ain't a bad thing," Dean says, seemingly reading Alec's mind. "Just weird. I've never, uh…I've never road tripped with someone who didn't know even something as basic as an exorcism."

"Why? Am I in danger or something?" Alec inquires, suddenly thinking Dean's trying to insinuate that Alec will be possessed sometime soon.

"Probably not," Dean hedges, glancing Alec up and down. He can't really imagine why a demon would want to ride him anyway. Demons usually have a reason to do so, and Dean can't come up with any for Alec. "But if you find someone dodgy, say '_Christo_,' and you should figure out real quick if you would've needed to know the exorcism."

"_Would have_?"

Dean chuckles at Alec's indignation, and then immediately subdues as he realizes he's fucking _laughing_ while standing next to _Bobby's grave_. Ignoring Alec's eyes on him, Dean squats down to be level with the gravestone, wishing he had some sort of token to lay on the grass. But the only thing he owns besides his clothes is his ring and bracelets, and he knows beyond a doubt that Bobby wouldn't want him to give those up. Especially since it was Bobby who'd indirectly given him the pendant that Dean had worn for seventeen years. More than that, Bobby isn't—_wasn't_—big on jewelry in the first place.

Running his calloused fingers along the exorcism words, feeling the cold stone that nixes his half-anticipation that he'd feel some sort of heat or spark or something. Something to show him that Bobby is still looking down or whatever, even though Dean doesn't believe in angels. Now it just reinforces that fact. If anyone he ever knew would become an angel, it'd be Bobby. If—no, _when_—he sees Sam again, and when they get through all of this back from Hell and Alec shit, he's going to say a big "I told you so." Angels. _Whatever_.

Even if he isn't Up There, though, Dean can still imagine that Bobby wouldn't want him to hang around all depressed over his death. Dean doesn't know how he died—probably some demon, and he'll find that out, he will—but Bobby would say it doesn't matter. That Dean needs to move on, damn it, and stop moping around like a fucking girl over something he can't change. Hell, Bobby wanted him to move on a mere three days after Sam had died. Bobby, Dean knows with a sad smile, would want a mourning fest for at most a day (he's not completely self-hating), and then after that, back to roaming the country icing supernatural pieces of shit.

"I'm sorry, Bobby," Dean says, so silently that Alec can barely hear it (though Alec thinks Dean wouldn't want him to, so he graciously disregards it). "_Omnis fallaciæ, libera nos, Dómine._"

Dean rises, taking a last glimpse of the headstone, and then Alec's shoulder to turn him around and walk through the rows of graves that they'd seen upon entering. Alec can't help but glance back, still wondering what Dean had been talking about, the whole demons thing remaining hard for Alec to comprehend. It's not that Alec can't believe a lot of stuff, because he can, but…demons are just so ideational that Alec can't really understand it. He wants to take Dean in faith, to trust that he knows what he's talking about—certainly the Latin was real, as well as Bobby—but he thinks, unfortunately, that for him it's just going to have to be a see it to believe it sort of thing.

Only, if demons _are_ real, Alec's not entirely sure he'd want to see one in the first place. What was it Dean had said? _Christo_? Something that simple hadn't worked for _The Exorcist_. Alec wonders if it'd be enough in this case.

Doubtful. But not that Alec puts stock in the existence of demons and Hell and crap anyway. Really.

* * *

Sick of wringing her hands over her thoughts, Max stands up from her desk, rolling her neck, and walks out into Command, where things have been picked up more than when she'd last left, but still look like a bomb had gone off. Mole is talking to—okay, yelling at—one of the other transhumans, and, taking pity on the latter's terrified face, Max hurries over and puts her hands on both of their shoulders.

"Hey, break it up," she says firmly, exercising her I'm-the-leader-here-buddy voice. Looking to the smaller transhuman, she says in a slightly gentler tone, "Find something to do."

He scampers off, and she instead looks up at Mole, his cigar puffing away despite the numerous times in the past she'd told him to stop smoking the damn thing inside where everyone walked around. Mole scrutinizes Max, not in a specifically caustic way, but certainly not to the point of friendliness. Somehow, Max doesn't suspect Mole would ever exactly feel "friendly" towards her. Ah, well.

"Mole, calm down," she says, her back straight and unforgiving. "Look, this is hard on all of us, okay? Dix is my friend, too, and—"

She's cut off by Mole's snort, and is legitimately surprised. Mole decides it's worth elaboration. "Seems like Emo Winchester Guy is more up your alley these days."

"I thought you liked him," Max says truthfully, thinking back on how Mole had seemed amicable enough in terms of Dean.

"He's better than some people," Mole concedes, and the implication that he's talking about Logan is more than clear in his unsaid words. "But not when ours are on the line. Not when he's more freakin' important to you than the rest of us."

Max is astounded at the things coming out of his mouth. _More important?_ "He isn't! You should know that!" she objects, showing more emotion than she meant to. "Besides, _Alec's_ the one who ran off with him!"

Mole shrugs, as if that fact had occurred to him and he didn't may it any mind. "Can't blame him," he says levelly, and Max doesn't see it as a dig at her; rather, Mole's honest opinion. "He's got more to do with the guy. So what if he thought things were too stuffy up here, thought you were too much of a bitch in this whole thing than he deserved? Plus, it got Winchester out of the way, so what do I care?"

"You like _Alec_," Max tries again, putting the intonation this time on who she'd thought was the closest to a best friend as both men could have.

"I ain't gonna cry about it," Mole says, hoisting the shotgun that Max is pretty sure is welded to his hand up onto his shoulder. "I'm gonna figure out who to kill for this damn explosion, if you don't mind."

Mole cuts off Max's response by walking away, and she stands there, frozen, wondering how everything had gotten so fucked up. Was it really only a few days ago that business in T.C. was under control, to the best of its ability? That she and Alec were running it to the best of their ability, and were even getting along? That the only huge roadblock was the government and White? For whom they were getting close to coming up with a solution, anyway?

Would everything have gone to seed even if Dean _hadn't_ shown up when and how he did? If her and Alec's positions were switched—disregarding Sam; er, X5-453, that is—would this have all happened the same way? Or is something special about Dean and Alec that inevitably messed with the fragile infrastructure they'd set up? Who does the fault lie with, then? Dean for appearing? Alec for going off God knows where with him? Her for enabling Dean? Rade for fixing him up? Logan for bringing him to the hospital? _Cindy_ for finding him and bringing him to her apartment? Whomever had brought him back in the first place? _Who?_

Max pinches the bridge of her nose, feeling a migraine coming on. Truly, she does love what she's done for the people who suffered Manticore, creating a city where they can live, but sometimes, she just wants to have a girls' night out with Cindy, watch a cheesy chick flick, confess all her woes and concerns while Cindy listens and offers advice. Stroll down to Crash, order a pitcher of beer, and talk and laugh with Cindy, Sketchy, Herbal, everyone, forgetting her cares for just those scant hours.

Now, though…

She doesn't regret the T.C. founding, she _doesn't_, and she doesn't regret one tier of the chain of command she's set up. Doesn't regret that one awkward day when she walked up to Alec and asked him to please be her second-in-command, after which he'd been shocked, but covered it up valiantly before shrugging a yes. Doesn't regret having Mole be essentially the order keeper, making sure the other transgenics know just where their loyalties would have to lie and who they'd have to defer to, or get the hell out. Doesn't even regret having Logan stay as far away from T.C. as possible—it's for his own good; not just the toxins, but because she couldn't live with herself if Logan got caught in some crossfire of a shootout.

Not wanting to, but knowing she should, Max walks over to the almost completely demolished computer terminals, her sensitive nose picking up some of the acrid-smelling aftereffects of the bomb still lingering amongst the wreckage. There's a transgenic, an X4 who had worked in Manticore's demolitions and munitions department, kneeling next to the base of the terminal, his slightly inhuman hand over his mouth in contemplation.

"Brannan," she greets, coming up alongside him. "Have you determined anything?"

He looks up at her, amber eyes solemn. "Not much," he says. "I think it was set off by a trigger of some sort, instead of a detonator or incendiary, but…with the computers all in pieces, I can't tell what would have done it."

Brannan's face is indecisive, and Max narrows her eyes shrewdly. "There's something else," she observes. "What is it?"

"I—I don't know…" Brannan replies unsurely. "There's just this weird stuff on the floor over here that doesn't make any sense."

Max leans down to where Brannan is, peering at a thick line of _something_ that's mostly charred, stuck fast to the base of the terminal. "You got any idea?" she asks. "Maybe it's some kind of accelerant."

Brannan shakes his head, takes out a knife, and scrapes some of the substance onto it. Holding it up to Max, he suggests, "Smell it."

She looks weirdly at him, but does so anyway. Immediately, she leans back, repulsed. "_Damn_," she coughs. "Too strong to be powder, isn't it?"

Brannan purses his lips in agreement, and regards his knife distastefully. "No powder or component of any bomb I've ever seen would cause this, or smell like this, either. I'll try and identify it, but I just don't know."

Standing back up and patting Brannan's shoulder, Max sighs. "Thanks," she says gratefully. "Hopefully it'll help figure out who did this."

The X4 doesn't look optimistic, but he nods anyway. "I'll try, Max."

Granting him a small smile, Max makes her way around some of the other transgenics in Command and out into a hallway that's thankfully uninhabited. Sitting down against a wall and staring at the opposite, she sets her chin on her pulled up knees, suddenly feeling weary, and wishing she had something to distract her. She would gladly have helped out with figuring out what the hell happened with the explosion, but she's not sure she could handle the furtive glances in her direction by more than the odd member of T.C., like they thought she was to blame or something ridiculous. She's not a sissy, to be sure, but she's afraid she'd lose her temper and alienate people.

She can't stop her imagination from presenting her with what this day could possibly have been, had Dean never crossed paths with anyone. More likely than not, she'd currently be in a heated argument with Alec, over something that probably wasn't very important, and Mole would be cleaning his shotgun, Joshua working hard on another of his personality portraits, some of the younger X-series throwing an old football around, paying no attention to the fact that it was low on air, and the laces were coming undone.

Instead, she's sitting in an empty hallway, the overhead lights flickering every so often, her Second off with his double, her it's-complicated cyber-hacker sullen over her insistence upon finding out what's up with Dean, her closest friend out in Seattle with normal humans and most likely worrying herself about everything (or bitching, it's hard to tell with Cindy), her medic trying to patch up their best computer manipulator from wounds that make Max sick.

She wonders where Alec and Dean are, what they're doing. How far they've gotten. Are they still in Seattle, just holed up somewhere and talking or fighting it out? Or had they somehow emigrated over to Fort Lauderdale or some such? She hates that she has no idea, and she hates that Alec won't even answer her calls. Most of all, she hates that she doesn't think she can give up her fascination with Dean until everything is hashed out, which, given the current parameters, won't be anytime soon.

* * *

"To the hospital?" Alec asks once they get back in the car, watching Dean take one of the last sips left in the whiskey bottle he'd been nursing.

Coughing a little against the too-large swig, Dean shakes his head. "Can't," he says, still far from processing Bobby's death, regardless of the "closure" he'd gotten. "Without Bobby's help, we'll just have to work harder. I'll futz with the shoulder later."

Alec clenches his jaw, but guides the car back onto the freeway, where he knows Dean would come up with some idea on how to locate Sam. They're about twenty minutes down the interstate when Dean groans, and puts a hand to his forehead, pressing his thumbs into his temples and squeezing his eyes shut.

"Dean?" Alec asks mutedly. "You all right?"

"Yeah, I jus'…" Dean's words run together, and he curses again, trying to fight through the dizziness. "I dunno wha's 'appening…"

"I'm sorry, man," Alec apologizes sincerely, his face drawn.

Dean looks sluggishly over at him, and reads his expression. "You…you son of a bitch," he slurs, the anger in his words undiluted. "Drugged me…"

Dean's down for the count before Alec can even think of answering, his form slumping within the seatbelt's hold, head lolling uselessly against the door. On his other side, Alec takes a deep breath, putting an elbow on the window frame and resting the side of his head on his fist, right hand kept loosely on top of the wheel. He'd done his homework soon after Dean had proclaimed they were going to Sioux Falls, taking advantage of the few naps Dean had succumbed to in order to locate various hospitals or clinics around the area. There were a good number in Sioux Falls itself, and Alec had certainly noted those, but on the off chance Dean would try to pull something, Alec had committed outliers to memory as well.

Which is how he knows there's a hospital in Luverne, Minnesota, about ten minutes out. He hadn't thought Dean would stage _too_ much of a coup if Alec dug his heels in, but to make things easier on everyone, he'd half-heartedly congratulated himself on the foresight to grab some Benadryl when they'd last rummaged through an abandoned mini-mart. Pouring the liquid into Dean's alcohol wasn't hard to wrangle, seeing as how Dean had more lapses in attention as they'd gotten closer to Bobby (and, indirectly, Sam). And while Alec feels bad about it, the tricking Dean, he knows it's for his own good. Plus, it's not like Alec had jabbed him with a needle pumped full of hard-core drugs. Benadryl isn't going to do anything harmful.

Alec just needs it to last until he can get Dean in to see a doctor to fix up his shoulder, and then he'll withstand any blowup Dean will undoubtedly give him. Dean's wrath would be temporary; Alec's afraid that much longer with his shoulder screwed up won't do either of them a lick of good.

Picking a parking space close to the entrance, Alec makes sure Dean's still conked out—he is—and strolls quickly into the hospital, all charm and swagger to the female receptionist as he asks for a wheelchair and someone to assist him with Dean. Of course he doesn't actually need the aid, but better to look the fretting brother than a freak transgenic. He's just hoping that Luverne doesn't get much television reception, or at least that the people are too Canadian-like to care. So far, so good, anyway.

It's a male orderly that ends up accompanying him out, hefting Dean's inert body from the seat of the car into the standard wheelchair and setting him in a secure position before heading back into the lobby. He doesn't speak much, doesn't even ask Alec what's wrong with Dean, and Alec infers it's because when it comes right down to it, the orderly is probably not going to be interacting with either man beyond this point, so why ask? Honestly, Alec's kind of grateful. It gives him time to completely sort out his cover story within his mind.

The kindly receptionist—who, although submitting to Alec's charisma, is obviously not going the route Harmony had, if her wedding ring and matronly aura is anything to go by—tells Alec a surgeon—since Alec had already convinced her they'd previously seen a GP, who confirmed the need for it—would be with them momentarily, and can he please have a seat in the lobby?

Alec does as he's told, watching Dean uncertainly, continuously warring with himself as to whether drugging Dean was the best route to go. He's grateful this hospital is one of the ones who doesn't ask for insurance anymore; Alec hadn't thought to fake a card, and although he has some hustled cash on him, it's not enough to cover a surgery, he knows that. The internal battling lasts until the doctor that the lovely receptionist had indicated comes over, alerting Alec out of his haze. It's a woman physician this time, late twenties and quite well-structured, if Alec can say anything about it, her long, honey-colored hair tied up in a messy bun as she looks down at Dean and then to Alec.

"I'm Dr. Noelle Stephens," she introduces calmly. "What is it that brings you here?"

"It's my brother, ma'am," Alec says respectfully, deciding to use his and Dean's resemblance to his advantage. "It's stupid, really…we were throwing a football around, and he'd had problems with his left shoulder in the past—college sports and stuff—but it hadn't bothered him for a while, so, y'know. Guess he caught the ball wrong or somethin', because it all just went to shit from there. We were pretty sure it was a rotator cuff thing, since he'd been in the hospital before, but we wanted to make sure it wasn't too serious. We live just a few towns over and saw a doc there, but they didn't have any real surgery equipment, and since this is the closest place with all that, they suggested we come here."

It's a grand lie, Alec thinks, and he's pretty sure (read: hopes) Dean would compliment him, had Dean not been, you know, a casualty of it. Noelle peers into Alec's face, her striking hazel eyes focusing as if they're ocular polygraphs. Alec feels rather unnerved, but she seems to deem him truthful, and motions in front of her.

"What are your names?" she asks while Alec wheels Dean down a hallway.

"I'm Alec," Alec replies. No damage in giving her their real first names, after all. "My brother's Dean."

"Here we are," she says as they arrive in a room labeled, aptly, "Surgery." "Now, Alec, would you mind telling me why your brother is unconscious? Surely it's not to do with the injury."

Alec tries not to glare at her—_Lady, would you just treat him already?_—thinking that would be counterproductive. "Honestly?" he says, irony intended. "Dean nearly had a fit about going to the hospital. Guy hates 'em. A dose of Benadryl in his Coke, and everything went a lot smoother."

"Uh huh," Noelle says flatly, doing that shrewd gaze thing again to where Alec can't tell whether she's actually buying into his bullshit or completely _not_ but humoring him anyway. Only seeing too-innocent candor in Alec's eyes, she leans back, instead focusing on his "brother."

Paying no regard to him, she feels the shoulder he'd previously alluded to, gently prodding the muscles and joints. A delicate frown appears between her eyebrows as she hits a certain spot, and she glances at Dean's face, the concentration there making Alec think that she notices something in his unmoving expression that he can't.

"It's been set right," she says, once again turning to Alec, "but there's definite swelling, and it's the kind of thing that could certainly be involved with a rotator cuff. I'll have to speak with his attending—"

"No," Alec spurts, before he can stop himself. Noelle raises an eyebrow. "I mean…" He can see he's not getting anywhere by trying to fool her—he wonders if she has brothers herself—and sighs. "All right, look. It's a really long story, but short version is, we got someone we need to find, but who's hard as hell to track. Kind of have to do it on the down low, too, and his shoulder really is busted, that much I'm sure of. As you could tell, we'd had it reset, but we had to…er…leave before we could get the surgery done. The guy's so damn hardheaded that doping him up was the only way I could get him into a hospital."

Noelle's expression is nowhere near encouraging and Alec begins strategizing on ways he could get Dean out of here while causing the least carnage. "Okay, Alec," she says, putting a minute emphasis on his name, letting him know she's skeptical on that front, too, "here's the deal. I don't owe either of you any favors, and I could very well get fired for not going through protocol on this. What you just said to me? There are a million ways that can be construed, and most of them would not be in your or Dean's favor, hear me? Now, one of two things is going to happen here. Either I pretend I didn't just hear any of that, and you get Dean's GP on the phone, or you start talking real fast as to why I should do this for you."

Alec's been relatively calm so far about everything, save for an outburst at Max earlier and the whole punching Dean thing (okay, come on, that last was totally justified! Dean was going to strangle her), but now he's frankly more than a little fed up. He'd dragged his ass all the way out to South Dakota to see some dude Dean had been close to back _whenever_, only to find out that he'd died, and then right after, Dean's intent was to keep driving along interstates until he got an epiphany or something about how to find his damn brother. Alec had had to frickin' _drug_ him to get his shoulder taken care of, and now some doctor is telling him she won't treat him just because he may have fibbed a little?

Hell to the _fuck_ no.

"Listen, lady," Alec says, his voice dangerous enough to even make Noelle cautious. "Dean's gonna have a coronary if he wakes up and finds himself in another hospital, not to mention be pissed at me because I slipped him Benadryl, not to _mention_ probably hit on you, and I'm about done with this whole fucking thing, so you know what? You fix him up now, or I'll _make_ you fix him up. And that's something neither of us wants. Understand?"

Noelle wouldn't say she's fearful of her life or any kind of crap like that—she's handled more irate family members and patients than Alec, even in just her few years of actual practice and residency—but beneath Alec's fury, she can see he's actually not just worried about Dean, but about at the end of his rope with whatever's been going on. She's not intimidated by Alec in the least, and honestly, what harm could come to sewing up a rotator cuff? It's a straightforward, routine surgery, anyway. Moreover, it isn't like the hospital is exactly _overrun_ with patients, and really, a _rotator cuff_? It isn't something that screams sketchiness, like a gunshot or stab wound or something. (And besides, both Alec and Dean are way too goal-oriented and obviously smart to hurt a doctor.)

Against her better wishes, Noelle heaves a sigh. "All right, fine," she says, like she's walking up to a firing squad. "But first things first, if he does have a rotator cuff injury, I'll need to either take or see scans of it. I can't just—"

"Just go with it," Alec protests, thinking there has to be at least some commonalities. "Okay, Dean said his previous doctor had said something about two of the four tendons being severed. Dean couldn't really tell what the MRI scans were, but that they had to bring in a separate surgeon."

"Alec," Noelle chastises, "injuries like this can't just be done on the fly. I need to see what I'm dealing with here. Or I could completely render Dean's arm immobile."

"Hear he's gotten that a lot lately," Alec grouses, thinking on how Dean had told him not only Carr, but Rade and whatever surgeon he'd had, had let him know just how touchy this kind of thing is. "Come on. Please?"

Noelle stares at him, looks at his desperate face. Unfortunately, she's not inclined to take this huge of a gamble. "I'll at least need to take an ultrasound."

Alec assumes they're not just used for pregnancies, then, though he's also pretty sure that they don't take a long time to perform. "Fine," he says in aggravation, hoping Dean's body doesn't spontaneously decide he's done with experiencing the sedative's effects.

* * *

Alec had been right—the ultrasound didn't take a horrifically long time, and although it's obvious Noelle would have preferred an MRI, her face suggests she received a clear enough picture. Armed with that, she turns to Alec. "Can you get him up on the table by yourself? I can call an orderly—"

"I got it," Alec protests, and Dean's total deadweight, but Alec's carried him before, as well as much heavier things in the past. It doesn't take long to place him in a relative sitting position up on the table, and Noelle walks to an over-sink counter, drawing out some liquid painkiller into a syringe.

"All right, now get his shirt off," she commands. Alec does so, tossing the garment off to the side, and Noelle steps forward. "Even though he's knocked out right now," she explains, inserting the needle into Dean's arm and depressing the plunger, sending the morphine through Dean's bloodstream, "it wouldn't be a good idea to risk him awakening and having him not anesthetized. Open surgery isn't a walk in the park if you're not."

Getting her tools together and deciding Alec would work well enough as an RN—it isn't like this simple kind of surgery really requires med school—she puts on gloves and a mask, wordlessly instructing Alec to do the same. He obliges, though his expression is rather startled. She can't really explain it, but something tells her that he would be more than sufficient in assisting her; something about his disposition and stance of pure concentration.

"Okay, now hold him steady," she orders, bringing the scalpel down to Dean's arm, the instrument drawing a line of red as the skin breaks open. "By the way…I hope you've got a strong stomach on you, pal."


	27. Chapter XXVI: A Million Doors

A/N: Same stuff applies as in the first chapter. Oh, and unfortunately I neither own _Supernatural_ nor _Dark Angel_. Just this.

A/N part two: Specific episodes of _Supernatural_ mentioned are: "The Benders" and "Houses of the Holy." Specific episodes of _Dark Angel_ mentioned are: "Gill Girl."

* * *

**Of Desire and the Status Quo**

_**Chapter XXVI: A Million Doors to Eternity

* * *

**_

Considering how much of a bitch Dean's shoulder had been since Alec had thrown him into the concrete, the actual rotator cuff surgery seemed pretty anticlimactic. Significantly shorter than Alec would've thought—and less messy as well, at least in terms of bloodshed—Dean not gaining consciousness, and Noelle being methodical and efficient about the whole thing, not even yelling (much) at Alec during it, he really almost _wanted_ more fanfare about it.

"Done," Noelle pronounces, tying up the last miniscule stitch on Dean's muscle. One final wipe of antiseptic, a bandage taped over the small external wound, and she's pulling off her mask and gloves, tossing them in the biohazard bin and motioning for Alec to do the same.

Glancing at the clock in the room and wondering if maybe it was ahead of time, he looked back at Noelle. "Damn. You're fast," he comments.

Noelle shrugs, regarding Alec indecipherably. "You weren't half bad an assistant," she says, as close to a compliment as Alec thinks he'll get. Turning back to Dean and seeing him finally start moving a muscle or two, she requests, "It'll be better if we lay him down on this. Try not to jostle his shoulder. It's still extremely sensitive."

Alec almost snorts, thinking about how Dean would grimace if he'd heard her say that; he'd do the whole "I was doin' just fine, got it?" masculinity thing that Alec had seen before. He doubts Noelle would be anything more than unaffected, but still…even Alec has to admit that after a while, the gruffness and perceived invincibility business gets a little tiring.

"Yeah, yeah, I've had one or two shoulder injuries myself," he remarks, deciding not to tell her that the vast majority of those he'd had to deal with himself. You know, slamming his own dislocated shoulder against a stone wall to pop it back into place, that sort of thing.

Noelle considers him suspiciously, but doesn't speak. She sincerely doubts Alec would tell her anything even resembling the truth anyway. There's nothing to do but wait now, wait until Dean awakens fully and she can go over the post-op procedures, write him scripts for pain and anti-inflammatory meds. She and Alec both take a seat, she in the more comfortable rolly chair—which Alec surveys with envy as he is demoted to the hard, thin plastic one—and pretend that the silence isn't stifling.

_Come on, dude, wake the hell up_, Alec thinks miserably. It's made even worse by the fact that he knows if the positions were reversed, Dean would probably already have had his way with the doctor in the storage room even before Alec was out of unconsciousness. Alec, to be frank, feels pretty pathetic. He _used_ to have that charm and charisma…what the hell happened?

He has a sinking feeling it has to do primarily with Dean being in the room. He wonders if Noelle is thinking along the same lines; more importantly, that she'd rather go through all this with Dean than Alec. He does have to concede that she's closer to Dean's age than his. That's just his luck. He'd said it to Max before, he'll say it again: He always goes for the ones he can't have. It's a sin, honestly.

"I don't suppose you'd tell me what _really_ caused this," Noelle pipes up, raising an eyebrow in challenge at Alec.

Who is completely downtrodden and just about done with everything. "I threw him into a concrete wall," he answers tonelessly, chin on his hand as his eyes glance up at the doctor.

She pauses, as if he's going to retract his statement, but he doesn't. "You are definitely not the one who does the lying between the two of you, are you?" she asks astutely, now firming that fact in her mind. Even asleep, Dean looks like he'd be the more rakish one. Alec's more…well, she muses, the little brother trying to reproduce said older brother's rakishness, to less avail. "Threw him into a _wall_, my ass. You wouldn't have the strength to do that."

Alec laughs ironically. "Believe what you want, sweetheart," he says, a little peeved. "But it doesn't really matter now. It's all patched up, we can head out once that lazy moron gets his act together."

"You sneaky bastard," comes their way from the operating table, and both Noelle and Alec start a little, snapping their heads over. Dean's eyes are still closed, and he hasn't changed positions, but there's a certain annoyed set to his mouth that everyone in the room knows is for Alec. "You friggin' _roofied_ me, man!"

Noelle decidedly shuts her mouth, sending an expectant, amused look in Alec's direction, who's rolling his eyes at Dean's melodrama. "Look, you totally wouldn't've gone to the hospital—"

"I need to find Sam, damn it!"

"Not with a busted shoulder."

Dean finally chooses to stare down his double, and sits up, valiantly ignoring the sudden rush of weightlessness in his head and crossed vision. He starts to chew Alec a new one, but then catches sight of the sole female in his vicinity, and promptly closes off whatever retort he'd had planned.

"Dude, I so forgive you," he says earnestly, only making eye contact with Noelle.

Alec glances over to her, and is immediately outraged to find her flawless cheeks gain the faintest of pink tinges. "Perfect. Just peachy," he mutters to himself, doubting Dean or Noelle, with their Ordinary hearing, noticed. Suddenly even less patient with everything, Alec questions acidly, "Can we get those prescriptions and blaze out of here already? I greatly, greatly dislike hospitals."

"Have some heart," Dean responds, sending a grin to Noelle as an afterthought.

"I'm not enabling your sick habit," Alec snarks back.

The reason unbeknownst to anyone else, Dean's exuberance suddenly fades, a kind of deep pain reflected in his eyes and now drawn mouth. The situations were entirely different, and yet the prim, nettled way Alec had said that sentence…it jolted Dean back fourteen years and a lack of quarters for a skeevy motel room's "extra amenity." Alec's about seven feet shorter than Sam, and he's far from the same bitchface, but…for a moment, Alec morphs into his younger brother, before transforming back into himself, albeit with a more confused and concerned expression.

Trying to regain his composure, Dean takes a silent, deep breath through his nose, and pretends he doesn't see Noelle and Alec's puzzlement. "So, um, what'd you do?" Dean asks Noelle, for the moment giving up both on his flirting and reminiscence of Sam. He flexes his shoulder, only wincing the slightest bit when the motion pulls against his stitches. "And can I have more of whatever that pain stuff was that you gave me?"

"I repaired that fucked up rotator cuff of yours," Noelle replies curtly, picking up on Dean's desire to forget what had just occurred. "You know, your brother was right—much longer with you overexerting that injury, and it could've been a lot worse for you."

Dean scowls, _this_ close to telling her that had been light compared to some of the hits he'd taken before. And not just in the Pit, either. Blood and Winchesters go together as naturally as doctors and antiseptic. If only his old scars were there as proof, she'd be a little less sugar-coaty. Then again, perhaps also warmer towards him, if she's one of those chicks who likes scars.

"All right, so why don't we just get those prescriptions and get on outta here," Alec proposes again, also sensing Dean's wanting to move forward. "Don't we have your bro to find?"

Glaring at Alec for throwing his own words in his face, Dean also catches Alec's slipup. Unfortunately, so does Noelle. "_Your_ bro?" she emphasizes suspiciously.

"Yeah, well," Dean says without skipping a beat. "Pipsqueak here's kinda the runt of the family."

Noelle smirks, like she's in on everything—or perhaps that she can make a similar comparison to her own family—and Alec would very much like to slap the grin off both her and Dean's faces. Well, one thing he _does_ know is that Dean won't be getting lucky with Dr. Quinn today, if he has anything to say about it. In the more rational part of his mind, Alec muses that maybe this sudden upturn of his libido is just him trying to do his defense mechanism thing, but that part isn't forefront now.

"Yeah, yeah, he's a Sasquatch, we know," Alec gripes, thinking back to both his nightmare with Dean having to look up to Sam, and also to the latter's stats, listing him as six-four.

Noelle at least comprehends Alec's restlessness, and takes pity on him. "I'll get you a few pills of OxyContin for the pain, Naproxen for an anti-inflammatory, and a script for more, _if you use it as I say_, although you'll definitely want to ice it as well. And no more than holding a coffee cup in your left arm for a couple weeks, Dean."

She gives him a look that clearly says she has him pegged as the kind of patient who disregards doctors' orders if they don't fit in with what he wants. "_However_ you say, doc," replies Dean, his words simple enough, yet their motives most obviously less than respectable.

Noelle ignores him, instead going over to a drawer and withdrawing a couple packets of two pills each, as well as scribbling some information on a pad of paper, ripping it off and handing the items to Dean. Immediately, he pops two of both the painkillers and Naproxen into his mouth and dry swallows them, waiting for the analgesic effects to come into play. Despite Dean's instant ingesting without hearing her directions, Noelle doesn't have the sense that Dean would abuse it, like some patients were wont to do with an opioid.

She hadn't believed for a second that Dean had only been playing idle football and gotten the degree of injury he had, but she does think that he's had lots of wounds before. (Even disregarding the messy array of deep scars across his heart, of which she doesn't know the cause, but can definitively point the weapon out as a hardcore blade, with serious intent behind it.) Which imply that he's well-versed in taking that kind of medicine; either that, or he would be worried that it'd indirectly slow down his ability to continue doing…whatever it is that he'd been doing that had forced the injury in the first place.

"Okay," Dean says a moment later, hopping off the table and grabbing his shirt, once more fighting the vertigo and desire to throw up. He's not sure it fools Alec or Noelle in the least, but he can at least pretend it does. It'll help his machismo. "Thanks."

He turns the door handle, wishing he could put his shirt on without it hurting (if those damn pain killers would just kick in already!). Noelle's a doctor, but that doesn't mean he's exactly _comfortable_ with being half-naked in front of the two others across from him.

Noelle follows them out, and starts to head back to her office, pondering whether her decisions were the right ones, but then stops, kicking herself for doing so. "Dean, Alec, wait," she calls, and the men in question turn around, the automatic doors already open. Awkwardly, Noelle offers with a sigh, "Look, um…if that shoulder gives you any trouble, or if your GP needs to contact me…"

"Don't worry," Dean says with a smirk, despite his still-vertiginous state, "I'll call you. Noelle."

"Dr. Stephens!" she yells irately, huffing as she hears Dean's chuckle, his and Alec's backs disappearing into the dusky night.

Another quiet laugh assaults her ears off to her right, and she snaps her head toward the matronly receptionist, her stance clearly demanding an explanation. "Men like that," the receptionist says, pointing knowingly to her wedding ring, "cause even the most decent of doctors to fall over themselves."

Noelle says nothing and storms off, cursing the two men that had expertly tricked her into performing a surgery that she really shouldn't have without knowing the full story and scans. A reprehensible move, no matter _how_ attractive they were.

* * *

"Oh, God, would you stop brooding on how much you hate me?" Alec snaps forty-five minutes down I-90, fed up with Dean's dreary mood. He'd put his shirt on by this time—ignoring Alec's offers to help, and simply enjoying the numbness that the OxyContin finally provided—and hadn't spoken since the hospital. "It's not like I murdered your dog or something."

"I'm not," Dean answers promptly, sounding surprised. "I woulda done the same thing."

"Then why the miserable right side of the car?"

Dean looks over, like he can't believe Alec's asking the question with an annoyed tone. "I'm trying to think what agency would be best to get Sam's cell location. Since your government went all to crap and everything, so you can't just call up the phone company and turn the GPS on."

"You think it would work?" Alec questions, internally doubtful it would.

"Best chance I got," Dean replies, knowing it's the truth. Especially since Bobby can't help them. And wouldn't at any point in the future. "Just wish we hadn't taken that pit stop. Lost some time."

Alec fights the urge to hit his head against the steering wheel in frustration. Or Dean's, for that matter. "Dean, your shoulder was giving you a hell of a time, even I could see that," he says sternly, unable to not feel at the moment like their roles had been reversed. Alec chiding while at the same time taking care of Dean, that is. "And we didn't lose _that_ much time. Jesus, Dean, how do you expect to save Sam if you're playing wounded?"

He honestly expects Dean to lash out again, and Dean begins to, but then sags in defeat. "I know," he says solemnly. "I just—I can't help but think that the more time it takes to even think up a plan the more states away Sam could be. I know how huge this haystack is. Sometimes it's near impossible to find someone who doesn't want to be found. Let alone someone like Sammy, who knows every trick in the book, and a few more that he's written himself."

Alec can't think of an adequate response for a few minutes, just keeps driving. Then, as if some outside power had planted it within his mind, he gets a spark of inspiration. "Hold up a second," he says, even though it's not like Dean was going anywhere. "What about NESDIS?"

"NESDIS?" Dean repeats, unfamiliar with the acronym. He's memorized more than a lot of agencies, but he can't recall that particular one.

"It stands for the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service," Alec recites. "It's a division of NOAA, and basically they take data from various military factions—Navy, Air Force, FAA, what have you—and other places to incorporate them into different satellites."

Dean raises his eyebrows at Alec, impressed. "Where'd you learn that, kid?" he asks.

Shifting in his seat uncomfortably, Alec takes a breath. "I was on a mission," he explains after a while. "Manticore relayed some of the imaging to me."

Dean doesn't ask what the mission was, judging from Alec's previous confession that it hadn't fared well for whomever was on the opposite team. Still, though… "How do you know they're still active?"

"'Cause the mission was last year," Alec says detachedly, regretting that he's making Dean feel like an asshole for asking questions, but unable to get the faces of that dead admiral's wife and child out of his head. "Manticore wouldn't've used them if they thought it'd go under."

Dean nods, willing to take Alec's word for it. "All right, where's this place located?"

"Asheville—wait, you want to infiltrate it?" Alec pauses himself, recognizing the voice full of confirmation. "We can't just _walk in there_."

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Dean puts his foot up on the dashboard, the appendage having started to fall asleep. "I gathered that much," he replies. "But who said anything about going in as civvies? What do you think they'd like better? NSA or Marines?"

Wondering if Dean had taken too much painkiller that it's messing with his brain, Alec gives him a look clearly implicating he thinks he's crazy. "What are you talking about?"

"I've been through these kinds of things a billion times before," Dean says, truly unable to count how many aliases and agencies of which he, Sam, and John had assumed membership. "I can whip up some IDs in an hour, tops. Just get me a decent copy center."

"And under what purpose would we be doing there, genius?" Alec demands, not doubting that Dean could make fake identification—hell, Alec can, too—and yet still skeptical on Dean's ability to bullshit _that_ well. "You really want to tell them that we're looking for Sam Winchester? There's bound to be some guys old enough there who'd remember your names."

"Aww, no need for flattery, dude," Dean says with a smarmy smile. At seeing Alec's lack of reaction, he sighs. "Of course not. For one, Sam wouldn't be using his real name. For two, we'd just say there's some security risk and we need to track the guy down. Planning another Pulse, or whatever you people call it."

"No way they're going to buy that," Alec fetters harshly. "Since '09, security in the government agencies that are still standing has been amped up more'n you'd believe. NESDIS will be the same way, you can trust me on that."

Dean's anger is simmering, Alec can feel it like it's a tangible third entity in the vehicle. "Alec," he says lowly, and Alec's gathered thus far that when Dean actually uses his name, it's because he's pissed off, "I know what I'm doing. I've been doing this shit since I was four. Granted, I wasn't actually the one _making_ the badges or whatever, but more often than not I've been going under someone else's name for the last twenty-five years. Well…" Dean amends with a pause and a wince, "_before_ those two thousand ones, but the fundamentals are the same."

Alec wants to blame the OxyContin again to Dean's offhand yet imbued with meaning response, but he can't. Mainly because the certainty in Dean's voice reminded him all too well of that night back in Pryor, when Dean had almost told him about what was so plaguing his waking—and sleeping—moments. Granted, Dean had cited _Hell_, but it's the intent that counts.

"All right then, MacGyver," Alec says sarcastically, "say your way goes south, huh? We get arrested, I get slaughtered for being a transgenic, and you get pinned as a _Friday the 13__th__ Part Six _knockoff. Doesn't sound like my kind'a fun."

"How the hell do you know about that movie?" Dean asks, dumbfounded. "That was in 1986, man. _I _barely remember seeing it."

Alec shifts his eyes sideways over to Dean. "Another job," he answers, and wishes he could have a less grisly one. "Undercover. The woman I had to terminate was big on the whole pre-Pulse slasher stuff. Had me watch some of 'em with her."

"Freddy or Jason?"

"Jason. No question."

"Knew you were good for something," Dean smiles crookedly, giving Alec a light slap in the chest. "Sam always went with Freddy. But then again, he also liked the _Godzilla_ remake, so I guess it's expected."

Alec's not familiar with those films, but from the derisive note of Dean's words, he guesses the remake wasn't well-received, at least by Dean anyhow. He debates whether to comment regarding Sam, not knowing how touchy Dean would be on any topic at all concerning his brother, so in the end decides to go the safe route.

"Great, we're on the same page about horror icons, but still on entirely different books for going about this, Dean," Alec says, tightening and loosening his grip on the steering wheel in agitation. "I just think it's way, way too risky is all. I mean, it's not like either of us is exactly Master of World Peace in terms of public relations."

"Sam and I got along just fine with our faces and fake IDs," Dean counters, staring at Alec's hard profile.

"Well I'm not Sam, okay?" Alec yells, finally losing it and snapping his glare to Dean furiously. "And _pardon me_ if I'm not too keen on getting busted for something _again_ for something that wouldn't be my fault! Last time was bad enough, my damn psycho clone responsible for my arrest, and that was when transgenics weren't so manhunted. Now I'm a friggin' VIP in the whole movement, and there's a shitload of people who want to get a hold of me, or worse, on my DNA and body parts. So I'm _sorry_ if I'm not jumping for joy on this half-cocked plan of yours.

"I'm _sorry_ I'm not Sam, Dean, but you're just gonna have to deal with that! 'Cause it ain't gonna change, got it? Just because you and I are pretty damn similar on a lot of things doesn't mean we're not total polar opposites on others. I got more military training than you, and I got better reflexes and mental capacity than you—they're just facts, Dean—and you have a busted shoulder, not to mention you have zero idea what's going on in the present, and I'm not going to stand for it. So stop giving out orders for two damn seconds, and just fucking _talk_ about it!

"I may not be the second half of your little dynamic duo, but I'm an asset in my own right, and we're pretty much partners now, whether you want to admit to it or not. So start treating me like one, and not a lame-ass sidekick. Or _I'll_ be the one throwing your ass out of the car, and _you_ can hitchhike your way to North Carolina."

Dean looks ready to murder, ready to cut Alec up into little pieces and scatter them all over Creation, as if Alec had gone into the Sistine Chapel and spray painted over the fresco ceiling, an inverted pentacle branded on his chest. Dean's green eyes are the pure embodiment of fury, the streaks of amber through them more homicidal than Alec's ever witnessed, more homicidal than Alec's ever known his own to be. What's worse is that Alec knows it's all directed at him, the gritted teeth, the protruding jaw, the twitching of the muscles around his nose, the sharp posture and tightened tendons…all of it, sent straight to Alec.

"Don't you say that about Sam, not ever," Dean growls, almost inhumanly. "And don't ever assume I compare him to you. Because you're not the same, not in a million years. Just get us the fuck to Asheville."

He turns his head to stare out the window, right arm clenched around his left, as if trying to hold in the hurt, both physical and emotional, and even if Alec tried to speak to him, he knows it'd be like talking to a block of cement, the hastily but solidly built walls too thick to penetrate.

So Alec drives, his hands rigid around the wheel, breathing stilted, the mileage signs only reaching as far as La Crosse, Wisconsin. He has a sinking feeling it'll be the longest twelve hundred miles of his entire life.

* * *

They're about eight hours out from the border of North Carolina by Alec's guesstimation when he spots an advertisement—albeit tagged almost beyond readability—for a restaurant coming up in the next town. It isn't so much that he's hungry (although really, he can feel his body yearning for calories), more that he's seriously jonesing for some caffeine right about now. He doesn't necessarily want to risk Dean's wrath some more by suggesting they stop for the night, but he will risk it for want of coffee. The Coke had long since worn off, and he and Dean had no other food-type items left in the car.

That, and Alec hopes there'd be some other vehicles in the parking lot, since the Mustang is running on less than an eighth of a tank, and because he hadn't exactly been able to grab extra money from T.C., Alec's strapped for cash. He's got enough for a drink, but not for gas, should they even find a station. He wonders if Dean would be up for some wholesome bar games in order to rustle up some more. Between the two of them, Alec thinks they'd have a pretty good turnout within mere hours.

Considering Alec has it on good authority (by which he means intuition) that Dean won't be speaking to him anytime soon—though he doesn't know exactly why; he thought he was being perfectly fair about his outburst, if perhaps a little…assertive—he doesn't attempt to. Pulling up into a parking space and shutting off the car, he exits and walks up to the diner, not bothering to check if Dean is following suit. Alec would very much like Dean to eat or drink something, but if the guy's too stubborn to do so, well, it's no skin off Alec's nose. Okay, not _a lot_, anyway.

The host is thankfully a male this time, and he barely looks up at Alec before asking if it's just him. Alec glances behind him to the car, where Dean is still sitting defiantly, and then sighs, "Nah, man. Can I just get—" Alec pauses, spotting an establishment out of the corner of his eye. Slowly turning back, his face gaining a mischievous glisten, he amends, "Never mind, actually. I think I'm gonna go for something a little…stronger."

The man looks neither impressed nor disappointed, simply apathetic, and Alec strides out of the diner. He leans through the car window, and Dean looks over at him. "So," Alec says nonchalantly. "How do you feel about ruffling up a few feathers?"

Dean frowns, but then catches where Alec had been looking: _Nate's Bar_. Dean's still not thrilled with Alec, but he is realistic enough to know that they're pressed for not only money, but a good, fortifying drink as well. And Dean could more than use that.

Getting out of the car and slamming the door, Dean walks around to stand next to Alec. He's stoic as he takes unwilling but heavy steps to the bar.


	28. Chapter XXVII: Bad Moon Rising

A/N: Same stuff applies as in the first chapter. Oh, and unfortunately I neither own _Supernatural_ nor _Dark Angel_. Just this.

A/N part two: Specific episodes of _Supernatural_ mentioned are: none. Specific episodes of _Dark Angel_ mentioned are: "Borrowed Time." Also, part of this chapter is inspired by the _Psych_ pilot and episode "Poker? I Hardly Know Her!" You don't need to have seen the episode, but I feel this is a lovely time to pimp the show. So.

A/N part three: _SUPERNATURAL_ COMES BACK TONIGHT. HELL TO THE FUCKING YES.

* * *

**Of Desire and the Status Quo**

_**Chapter XXVII: Bad Moon Rising

* * *

**_

Calvin Simon Theodore, known more publicly as Sketchy, is not stupid. Well, not all the time. Especially since he'd become aware of Max and Alec's…_upbringing_, he'd been more astute of the goings-on around him, noticed things that he probably wouldn't have before. Probably, he's mused in the past, because he's subconsciously waiting to see another transgenic all incognito, and hopes that the next time he'd be able to scope them out first, let them know he's a cool dude. Of course, this scrutiny hasn't helped his pool game any, but now that Alec had assimilated into Terminal City, it's not like he'd been doing much playing anyway. Now that he thinks about that, he actually kind of misses it. Despite the fact that he'd never won, not _once_, not even when he could tell that Alec was toning down his admirable skills.

Whatever.

However, with that acuteness that he'd gained, it wasn't just applicable to identifying transgenics. He could now read his friends that much better, could understand why he'd always felt out of the loop when he, Max, Alec, and Cindy were sitting around the table, and suddenly Max and Alec would share a Look, then, as if they were on the same wavelength, they'd up and leave, and Cindy would seem to understand. Whereas Sketchy was left in the dark _again_, and no matter how much he'd ask, no one would enlighten him. Primarily because they figured he was too dense to get it. Well, that was a load of crock, and Sketchy really wanted to prove it.

Unfortunately, the damn military had caught wind of the transgenics, went on a manhunt—animal hunt? Manimal hunt? Sketchy doesn't know what to classify them as—and forced them into hiding, into a toxic waste dump that sadly causes anyone non-Manticore to have to stay away. Which includes half of his usual Crash buddies, and as much as he adores Cindy, it just isn't the same. He still buys beer, but it seems like an empty purchase, the money going to the bar as it did, except he doesn't have Alec to smirk and make fun of him for that, or Max for the slightly pitying glances, or Cindy who was in the middle of the two. (Though she did lean a little more towards the Alec smirk.)

And that is what finds Sketchy in the bar that night, sipping a badly brewed liquor, sitting by himself. He doesn't know where Cindy is exactly, but then again, that isn't a _rare_ occurrence, per se. He figures Max and Alec are back in Terminal City as has become their norm, ruling over their fellow Manticore brethren like a crude reproduction of a city-state. He, of course, doesn't have any idea about where Alec _really_ is, nor about how much Max is pulling her hair out about him and Dean. The latter who Sketchy also doesn't know even exists.

He's not quite down to just foam yet when a man comes up to him, standing ominously to Sketchy's left, staring down at the bike messenger with an unreadable expression. "Yeah?" Sketchy asks warily, setting down his beer.

"You're some reporter, ain't ya?" the man asks, in a thick drawl. "And friends with those _freaks_."

Sketchy can see quite clearly that the man isn't a fan of the transgenics in any way, shape, or form, and Sketchy's really not interested in being beaten to a pulp. "Uh…well, I wouldn't say _friends_," he lies, knowing that, were Max and Alec around to hear him, they'd understand all too well the occasional necessity of lying out your ass. "But yeah, I've crossed them a time or two."

"Think you can get a message to this one?" he says dangerously, slapping down a photo. It's grainy, and the colors are washed out, but Sketchy looks at it anyway. "He's a big shot over in that crapshoot, an' he came in here few days ago, clocked me one, then ran like some scum of the earth. I got some unfinished business."

Frowning, Sketchy studies the picture again. His mind wants to say Alec, but…there's something…_off_ about it. Sketchy'd seen Alec recently and often enough to where he knows the guy's face pretty damn well, and unless the transgenics' DNA had suddenly decided to put on an aging spurt, the man in the picture isn't Alec. Which confounds Sketchy immensely, given that how in the hell is that possible? He briefly ponders the possibility of Big Scary Dude putting the picture into one of those what-will-you-look-like-in-ten-years things, but then dismisses it for lack of foundation. What good would it have done, to change Alec's picture?

Sketchy knows that the man isn't Alec. He knows that with certainty. But it begs the question: Who the fuck _is_ in the photo? And, arguably more importantly, what's he supposed to say to Big Scary Dude?

* * *

In a similar venue over twenty-five hundred miles away, Alec and Dean enter Nate's Bar, trying to mold their stances into ones of nonchalance and swagger, while inside feeling nothing of the sort, Dean downright depressed, and Alec frustrated and near to losing it. (Again.) It's busier than would be expected in such a small town, with two pool tables, a card table, bar, a sizable room between them, and the few tables that are used for people simply chatting amongst beers. In truth, it reminds Alec fairly accurately of Crash. Sans his friends and familiarity, of course.

That said, Alec's quickly finding out, there is a good thing about small towns in Indiana—they tend to pay more attention to inter-city gossip than national controversies. Like, say, a transgenic that happens to be co-leader of the largest known commune of transgenics. Alec won't bring any of that up.

The bartender, who Alec assumes is Nate, takes in the two new patrons with a quick but discerning eye, judging their level of raucousness and whether they seem to be able to pay. He apparently deems them harmless enough (if he only knew what either, let alone both, man is capable of…), and slides two beers across the counter towards them. They're different brands, but Alec's is his favorite, and going by Dean's apparent relative satisfaction, Nate's guesses had been spot on.

"Don't think I seen you around here before," he comments, mentally adding two more checkmarks to his tally of successful beer predictions.

"Just passing through," Dean replies gruffly, and if Alec hadn't known that by this time Dean's voice had more or less worked through its laryngitis and so the coarseness has to be attributed to something completely different—he's willing to bet it's a relatively new development—he would have presumed it's just Dean's natural timbre. Which is a sad fact that Alec wants to disprove, but can't.

"Yeah?" Nate asks. "Where you from?"

Without missing a beat, the question having come Dean's way more times than he can count, he answers, "Fort Collins. We're on our way to Asheville, family reunion."

_You could say_, Alec muses, unimpressed.

Nate quirks his mouth in a smile. "Fort Collins, eh?" he remarks. "M'wife's from there. Nice area."

"Yeah," Dean says stiffly, and Alec wonders if the city was one he and Sam had traveled through before or something. Considering their past, Alec wouldn't doubt it. Dean gestures with his head toward the billiards. "Think we got a chance playin' over there?"

Laughing, Nate shrugs. "Feel free to try, boys," he says, before adding dubiously, "Tell you what. Getcha 'nother round if you win."

Alec and Dean look at each other, and though their faces reveal nothing, the identical glimmer in identical eyes is clear as day to them: _Bring on the beer, then, Nate._

"Thanks, man," Alec says giving the barkeep a little pre-victory toast.

They walk away, heading in the general direction of the games. "I'll take pool," Alec declares, eyeing Dean's injury. Handing Dean a twenty, and keeping his very last for himself, he proposes, "You try your hand at poker."

Dean snorts at Alec's embellished challenge. He's a master at both games, but even he'll admit that he wouldn't be playing his best without full maneuverability of his shoulder. Glancing over at the pool table and taking a brief overhaul of the players, he advises, "Watch out for Drunk Guy over there. He ain't actually drunk."

Alec follows Dean's observation, and, upon viewing the nuances of the man's game—the tiniest bit exaggerated motions meant to imitate inebriety, the eyes not glassy enough to be alcohol-laden, the calculated way he makes his way around the other people by the table, deciding on his shots and the other man's as well—has to agree.

Swigging his beer, Alec grins, "Don't worry. I got it covered."

Watching Alec saunter over, already seeing the tensing of his muscles as he prepares his competition, Dean sighs, wishing it's Sam he sees beginning to hustle the barflies, keeping an eye on his little brother while Sam does the same. Instead, he sees his double, his double who has no eyes on Dean, only on the game. Not that Dean needs protection or anything, nor had he ever not ribbed Sam about being a worrywart, but he'd always appreciated the backup, _just in case_.

But he has a job to do now, and Dean knows better than anyone that you can't get anywhere without some dough in your back pocket, and just because he's practically got a physical agony throbbing inside him because he's so close and yet so far from finding his brother doesn't mean that he has time to get sloppy. Pretending that this is just a precursor to some hunt, and that Sammy's just out getting…something, Dean drags his feet over to the poker table, around which three guys and one woman are sitting. The deck is shuffled by a guy chewing tactlessly on a toothpick, and he starts to make the rounds with the cards.

Walking up to them, Dean's presence imposing, he shucks on a tone of joviality with a swipe of danger. "Hey, fellas, mind an extra?" he inquires.

At no objection, he drags over a chair, slaps down the bill that Alec had given him and one of the guys, wearing an old _Airwolf _shirt (Dean doubts he even knows how awesome the show was), pours the corresponding amount of chips next to a guy wearing a green foam cap. Dean really wonders how the man could think the hat's cool, when it was lame even the _first_ time it came out. But whatever floats his boat.

Dean picks up the cards dealt, and considers. It's not the greatest and not the worst hand, consisting of two tens, but then again, poker's not so much having skill at reading the cards, but rather skill at reading the opponents. His expertise for detecting tells not hindered by his stint in Hell, Dean covertly studies each person as they ante up and make bets; he notices Toothpick take an extra hard bite of the thin wood as he puts down the first play and looks at his own hand.

"I'm Francine. What's your name, dollface?" Ponytail asks him, her name totally going in one of Dean's ears and out the other. As she subsequently sees the three cards in the center, she bites her lip but places her not particularly dynamic bet.

"My name?" Dean repeats, flashing his eyes up to hers briefly. "Steve."

_Steve Walsh, and this is my partner, Phil Ehart_, Dean wants to amend and point to Sam, but he can't. Hell, he'd take introducing Alec as that, but the twerp's grinning and flirting and generally being a clandestine shark over at the pool table.

_Airwolf _Shirt also follows suit in matching the bets, a simple frown in accompaniment, and Dean gets the sense he's not much for talking.

Foam Cap decides to raise by a few tokens, flicking the tip of his cards a little, which causes his two predecessors to add chips in order to equal it. "You played much Hold 'Em, Steve?" he asks.

His turn now, Dean looks at his cards, and then at the Flop—three, seven, Jack—and puts in a stack of his own, not worrying about his personal affectations, since he knows he doesn't have any. He's bluffing it up to the sky, but he can't help but feel a slight rush go through his system, the first real step towards normalcy (normalcy according to his previous life, anyway) that he's had in a long time. Driving around was a lumber in the general direction, but with Alec doing most of it, and chatting all the time, it didn't feel much like anything. Poker, though, _gambling_…that's getting better.

"Pick up game here and there," Dean replies shrewdly, letting on nothing.

Rounding out the hand, Toothpick calls and then lays down the Turn, a ten next to the Jack, and when his chewing doesn't change, Dean surmises the fourth card hadn't given him squat. His eyes move over to Ponytail, who bites her lip again; she's definitely got something. _Airwolf_ Shirt gives up and folds, resigning himself to the fact that he hadn't even had two pair. Foam Cap doesn't do anything apart from meeting the bet, which Dean takes as either he's on the verge of getting a flush or thereabouts, or on the verge of totally striking out. As for Dean…well, his facial expression is still schooled, even though he continues to take in his three tens with wariness.

"Didn't catch that straight, huh, _Airwolf_?" Dean directs, lifting an eyebrow.

_Airwolf_ Shirt sends Dean a subdued scowl. "Vince," he corrects, annoyed.

Dean withholds a chuckle as the River reveals another Jack, and he's tens full, but Ponytail's still biting her lip, and that's a little worrisome. "Final bets?" Toothpick offers.

Ponytail, true to what Dean had predicted, puts a sizable chunk of her chips into the pot, cards held tight in her hands. Foam Cap hems and haws for a few seconds, before proclaiming the play is too rich for his blood; he'd apparently been on the unfortunate side of the make-or-break hand. Dean peers at Ponytail and then at Toothpick, who's still chewing heartily on his namesake.

Realizing that, seriously, what else has he got to lose, Dean shoves all his chips into the center of the table, meeting Ponytail's then Toothpick's gazes unabashedly. He's faced down monsters their nightmares wouldn't touch…it's not like he's going to be intimidated by these…these…_Ordinaries_. (With that thought, Dean finally grasps what Alec and Max and the rest of them had been talking about. Dean and Sam had always regarded these kinds of people as just plain civilians, but he supposes that Ordinaries would work just as well. He's not sure how comfortable he is with that revelation.)

"I'll meet that," says Toothpick with a sly uptick of his lips, the prop shoved to one side as he mirrors Dean's move.

They both look at Ponytail, who takes a few more seconds, before sighing. "I'm up for a challenge," she says, and triples the pile.

With that, they show their highest cards, using the ones on the table. Ponytail unveils a three, six, seven, eight, and Jack, all in Hearts. A flush, and Dean's got one opponent down. He looks at Toothpick's hand: three sevens, and the two Jacks. Exhaling, Dean allows himself a small smile, reaching for the chips in the center.

"Tens full of Jacks beat sevens full, I'm afraid," he says, remembering just how much he loved to see high-rollers' faces fall when they realize they've been beat. Even greater when they bring props, as in Toothpick's toothpick falling down to the table. "Play again?"

* * *

Alec spares a moment from the guy setting up the next game—it isn't real hustling if you win every time; Alec had purposefully lost the first—to look over at Dean, just in time to see him slide a sizable amount of chips from the middle of the table, cards being shuffled again, yet the other members of the group having varying levels of disgruntlement. Granted, Alec can see even from his vantage point that the sole woman there has a visible leer on her face directed at Dean, but he doesn't seem to be paying her any attention. Similarly, all it means to Alec is that he'll definitely be getting more than his twenty back.

"My break?" Alec's opponent says, returning him to the setup.

Alec shrugs. "Sure, man," he agrees, although technically it should be Alec's break since he'd "lost." It'll only really matter for Quentin—his contender—though, considering the guy's in for a huge ass kicking.

Quentin isn't a bad player, to be honest, sinking two stripes on his break, then sinking one more before missing, and the turn goes to Alec. Sure, Alec had had to _try_ to lose, but at least it wasn't as difficult to throw the game with him as it was if Alec played Sketchy. Alec has a soft spot for the pseudo-journalist, but really, Sketchy has next to _zero_ pool skills. Easy beer money, though, Alec had always figured.

Since he's already given up one game to Quentin, now's his turn to, as Sketchy put it once, "run it." Lining up the shot, Alec slams the cue ball into a grouping of others, and three of the solids clink into pockets, sending Quentin's in various directions. Alec grants himself a smirk—and a casual wink at the couple of women who are hanging around the table—before striding around to the other side and repeating his move. A blue and red hone in on corner holes, hopelessly driven into them.

Quentin peers at Alec skeptically, the accusation in his eyes clearly indicating he's starting to question the claim that Alec isn't much of a pool player. Alec aptly picks up on this, and purposefully forfeits a shot that would have nearly cemented Alec's game, passing the turn over to Quentin. Who promptly lessens his silent allegation and lines up his play.

Before he can, Alec interjects, "You still on for this wager?" With it, he points out the stack of bills adding up to, he calculates, over two hundred dollars. What can he say? He's a genius at compelling people.

"Hell yeah," Quentin replies with a grin. "I don't back out of a bet."

Alec goes silent to allow Quentin to take his turn, and he knocks in three more balls, Alec noticing the man's facial expression quickly turning to cockiness at only having one more stripe and the eight ball to kill. People would assert that Alec's boastful, but he's got the skills to back it up; in most people, that confidence is purely blind. As is proven when Quentin takes a long drag of his beer, then sets up a possibly winning shot. Alec sees immediately that Quentin's angle is off, and sure enough, the last stripe ricochets off the edges, clicking harmlessly away from the pockets. Alec tries not to grin.

He wonders if Quentin now regrets his previous statement, but unfortunately for him, and as every guy knows, it's about the worst thing you can do to wimp out on an agreement, especially monetarily, that's already underway. Plus, Alec's down to zilch in terms of funds, and he _needs_ that money. Never mind that Dean's looking to be raking in the cash pretty well; it's a matter of _ego_, jeez.

Speaking of, Alec glances briefly over at his poker shark of a companion, and with his enhanced vision, he sees that Dean's sitting on pocket rockets, both spades, the body language of the other players significantly chary. Even though it's irrational, Alec feels a sort of pride about it all. He hadn't thought Dean was incompetent—the stories about him definitely don't say that—but still, having the fact set in stone is a nice confirmation.

Noting that he'd have to pop the cue ball over Quentin's, and at the same time avoiding knocking Quentin's in, Alec points the stick at a sharp degree, and rams the chalked edge onto the felt. The purple, chipped ball jumps, rolling quickly into the side pocket, not even brushing Quentin's. Alec doesn't need to see his opponent's expression to know it's fuming, and instead walks around the table, the cue beautifully lined up with the black win-or-death sphere.

"Eight ball corner pocket," Alec calls, making sure Quentin wouldn't pull a dick move and try and distract or jostle Alec's play. But he's a good ten feet away, seemingly playing to the rules.

It's almost anticlimactic when the white ball slams into its colored adversary, the eight ball sliding into the Alec-designated hole, given that there were no illusions Alec wouldn't make it, not the way he'd been playing earlier. Alec won't push his luck, though, and refrains from a smile, as he grabs the money pile without fanfare.

Holding his hand out to Quentin, he says levelly, "Good game, man. You were a worthy rival."

Quentin returns the gesture, and half-heartedly offers, "Two out of three?"

Alec shakes his head a little, and glances at the watch he's glad he's wearing. "Sorry," he replies, trying to imbue as much legitimacy in it as possible. "I gotta go. But hey, I pass through here, I'll look you up."

"Yeah," Quentin agrees, shrugging his shoulders. "Catch you later."

Alec gives Quentin a last nod, and then heads for the back exit of the joint. Before he can, Nate's voice halts him. "Hey, kid!" Alec turns around, hiding the annoyance. "Want that beer?"

He'd forgotten about the deal Nate had made him, and now that he'd won, he supposes it'd be a nice cap to the night. However, he can see Dean's poker game is coming to a close, and he doubts Dean would appreciate any more stalling. All the same…

"We have to run, but I'll take it for later if that's cool," Alec proposes, walking swiftly over to the bar.

Nate puts two bottles on the counter, and gestures with his head towards Dean. "Looks like you two got this place cleaned out pretty good," he comments. "Tell your buddy congrats."

Alec restrains the urge to laugh. _Yeah, like Dean would _want_ congratulations._ He sincerely doubts that even back in his and Sam's heyday Dean appreciated congratulations. Well, apart from some curvy brunette with lusty eyes and partial buzz, that is.

"Will do," Alec says anyway, and takes the beers in his hand, striding back the direction he'd come. Dean's still not done with the game—though Alec knows it's not long—and so he merely gives him a meaningful look, makes sure Dean understands, and then exits.

As Alec steps out into the frigid twilight (he hadn't thought it could get colder than Seattle, but apparently Indiana's got it beat, _holy hell_, and why is it so chilly in June?) and shuffles his way over to the car, hopping onto the hood and crossing his legs under himself, stuffing the cash into his wallet then staring at the cracked pavement, taking advantage of the silence to try and wrap his head around the whirlwind that's been the last few days.

When he'd initially left with Dean, he hadn't thought much about it. Yeah, the guy had pissed him off not but minutes before that, but Alec _had_ to find out what was going on. And Dean had been right about Max wanting to decipher him like some kind of unworkable code. Alec could see past Dean's veneer though, likely because there are so many of his own traits in the seven years older man.

He could see that Dean was just as spooked as Alec was, that he just wanted to _find his baby brother_ and have Sam sort everything out. Or at least rely on Sam's intellect and caring to help bolster him, and the two of them could figure everything out. Alec honestly believes that Max would try her best to find Sam, but he has a looming feeling that she'd put some kind of contingency on it or something. Say that she'll tell him where Sam is as long as she can come along and be in the loop about everything.

But what Max doesn't see is that, really, the Sam part of this isn't any of her business. Maybe the Dean part, seeing as how he looks like Alec and Ben, but Sam? The taller brother's not someone that Max is entitled to. Plus, Alec can't see Max deferring to him; the opposite, probably, her assertive personality wanting to counteract Sam's. Alec knows the score, though. He knows that he doesn't have any entitlement to Sam, either, and he's prepared to let Dean have that moment or whatever. It's not to say Alec won't want to tag along, and he predicts an argument between him and Dean, but when it comes right down to it, it's Dean and Sam. Not Dean and Sam and Alec, or Dean and Sam and Max.

The pitiful thing is, Alec sighs as he looks at the façade of the bar (and hell if he'll tell anyone), he's kind of found a rhythm hanging out with Dean. It's more than a little awkward a lot of the time, and Dean's often pissed off with him, but he imagines (hopes?) that's how it'd been sometimes with Sam also. In all the jobs he'd had where there'd been a pair of siblings, they'd always had tiffs, sent barbs at each other constantly; how could Sam and Dean be any different? Especially bearing in mind Dean's extroverted personality?

"Oh, Christ, I'm so pathetic," Alec scoffs at himself, laying on his back and purposefully exhaling heavily, watching as his breath condenses into a white cloud.

"You just figuring that out?" Dean's voice comes from his left, shortly accompanied by slow footsteps.

Alec starts, though he'd resigned himself a while ago to the fact that he really shouldn't take it personally when Dean never fails to sneak up on him. The way he sees it, it's in the genes. So to speak.

"How'd you do?" Alec asks, trying to ignore both Dean's jab and the reasons behind Dean actually resuming speech to him (and whether he'll go all bipolar again).

Dean withdraws a hearty handful of bills from his pocket, and cocks a grin. "Two fifty," he answers. "It's less than I used to make in a night, but your economy is even shittier than ours was, so inflation, right?"

"Sure," Alec replies hesitantly. "Well, guess we should burn some rubber now if we want to make it to North Carolina anytime soon."

He starts to walk around to the driver's side, when Dean's arm catches him in the chest. Alec thinks that he's about to object to being relegated to the passenger side again, but one look at his face says differently.

"Hold up a second, Alec," Dean says gruffly. (Alec tries not to show any affect at the fact that Dean had called him by his name instead of "kid" or "clone dude" or whatever else.) "Look, I shouldn't've said what I said back there. It…wasn't fair."

"Doesn't matter," Alec lies, all too well versed in putting up a mask, Manticore's mask. "I didn't have to blow up either."

"Would you just hang on for one friggin' second?" says Dean in annoyance as Alec tries futilely to get in the car. "It's just this driving around thing with you, it makes it easier if I can pretend you're Sam and stuff, which isn't right—Sam's way bitchier—and, I mean…Jesus, I suck at this crap. Look, point is, it's not your fault you look like me, and even though I'm…I'm in some bad shit right now, I probably shouldn't take it out on you."

Alec regards Dean thoughtfully, and stops himself from giving some sarcastic rejoinder. Dean's definitely not one for orations or mushy stuff, Alec knows that much, and especially considering his mood ever since Alec'd met him, the effort he'd made means something.

"'Kay," Alec says simply, half-smiling. Without warning, he inhales and then tosses the scratched car keys at Dean. "Why don't you drive for a while?"

"Oh wow, I'm so honored," Dean falls back into their previous repartee, but is even so able to recognize the defense mechanism—he'd perfected it, after all. "What, no 'dude, your shoulder's screwed' excuse?"

Alec shrugs. "It's only in the hope that you'll stop being so mopey," he replies, and hopes the remark wasn't too soon.

Thankfully, Dean doesn't react to it. "Whatever," he says instead, and quickly strides around the car and gets in. With a last inscrutable look at Alec, he twists the keys in the ignition, and in the next moment, the parking lot outside Nate's Bar is streaked black.


	29. Chapter XXVIII: I Fall to Pieces Now

A/N: Same stuff applies as in the first chapter. Oh, and unfortunately I neither own _Supernatural_ nor _Dark Angel_. Just this.

A/N part two: Specific episodes of _Supernatural_ mentioned are: "Skin," "Nightshifter," and vaguely "The End." Specific episodes of _Dark Angel_ mentioned are: "Pilot" and "The Berrisford Agenda."

* * *

**Of Desire and the Status Quo**

_**Chapter XXVII: I Fall to Pieces Now, a Broken Mirror

* * *

**_

When Alec feels a tiredness behind his eyes, he chalks it up to simply being tired, the stress of Dean's arrival adding to the stress of Terminal City and White and everything just overworking him. He doesn't feel the strain as a full-body ache, just a pulling against his temples, but figures it doesn't mean anything. (Tries to figure, anyway.)

And when he realizes he's blinking more than normal and feeling on-edge, he does his best to clamp down on it, refusing to acknowledge what he's darkly afraid might be happening.

It gets to the point where Dean, about six hundred miles in, notices his carmate's discomfort. "I told you, pit stops are chosen by the driver, not shotgun," he cites, the rule going right alongside the choice of music one.

Alec flicks his eyes over to Dean, and commands himself to relax. "Nah, dude, I'm fine," he says in excuse, his voice level. "Just tired is all."

A faint bell goes off in Dean's head at Alec's words. Because they're the same words Dean himself had said so many times to Sam, and each time it had been an understatement. Sam had never caught on, not really, and while Dean may be slow on the uptake on some things, he's generally pretty up-to-date on what occurs in his own mind.

"What, your whacked genetics make you more susceptible to exhaustion or something?" Dean asks, thinking that it's rather unfair if the transgenics have _no_ flaws whatsoever. Alec doesn't answer, his jaw tight when Dean looks over at him. "Hey! I asked you a question."

The authority in Dean's tone doesn't go unnoticed by Alec, and, well, not all of his training had gone out the window when Max burned down Manticore. "We can run for days," Alec replies, breathing methodically.

Dean wants to beeline straight for wherever Sam is, and looks at the squiggly horizon as if he can make out his brother's freakishly tall frame. But, for all the things Hell took from him, they hadn't managed to take away his humanity. Not all of it, anyway. Yeah, Sam's his number one priority, and Alec's little more than a pain in his ass, but that doesn't mean Dean wishes him harm or something. (Plus, awkward car rides are never fun.)

"Okay, then what?" Dean persists, elbowing Alec roughly. "I stole a gun from your guys' armory—I'll use it, I swear."

Alec looks at Dean, unsurprised at the theft, and also not attempting to wonder where Dean stored the firearm. Thinks it's better that way. Dean, however, is just a little bit more surprised. Alec's face, he can see now, is covered in a light sheen of sweat, and his fingers are digging so deeply into the upholstery that Dean wouldn't be shocked to discover he'd punctured through to the foam.

Dean's seen enough sickness and injury aftermaths to recognize the fever brightness in Alec's eyes, and sighs. "Don't even try and fake this with me," he demands, scouting for an exit. "What's going on? You got a bullet in you that you neglected to mention? Got some flu thing?"

"No," Alec bites out, knowing that, one way or another, this is going to get out. "Just…just a tiny issue I have."

"Should've figured you're as stubborn at admitting you're sick as I am," Dean grumbles, finding an off-ramp and taking it. The town's not much more than a tiny general store and an empty parking lot, but Dean pulls badly into a space, shutting off the car and looking at Alec. "Explain. Now."

Alec's teeth are grinding together in the effort to keep from showing any tremors, but even his strong will isn't enough to overpower biology. Dean throws off his seatbelt and comes around to Alec's side of the car, kneeling on the baseboard of the car frame.

Alec looks even worse from close up, and now those little warning bells are full-on sirens. "Talk to me," Dean barks, never one for the bedside manner, especially in the few instances when panic starts to set in.

Alec feels it coming on, and knows this time, it won't just be a headache or fatigue. "_Shit_," is all he can say, and closes his eyes.

Dean grips Alec's shoulders with bruising force, trying his best to understand what Alec's problem is. "What? Seriously, dude—"

"You, uh—you got any milk?" Alec manages to whisper, before going rigid in Dean's arms, his muscles locking up as his brain decides to wage an electrical crusade on his body.

Dean stares at him like he's crazy, but then Alec's body finally surrenders, and he starts convulsing, violent tremors shaking throughout his limbs. "Alec!" Dean yells, eyes wide. "What the hell's going _on_?"

He doesn't think that Alec just might not be able to speak, but then remembers his request and, having dealt with weirder—although admittedly usually by supernatural means—things before, he darts outside of the room, skidding to a stop by the tiny general store. Thanking no one in particular that it's open, he rushes in and throws open the refrigerator doors, grabbing a carton of the white liquid. At the moment not giving a shit about his "hard-earned" cash, he throws down some bills on the counter and hurries back to the car. He would have just stolen the item, but he—and Alec—doesn't have the means this time to escape and evade.

He's pretty sure the cashier yells something behind him, but he can't be fucked to pay attention to it. Dean holds down Alec's seizing body as best he can, tries not to flash back to when Sam had his visions, and spills some of the milk into Alec's mouth, fairly sure that at least some made it down his throat.

Finally, after what seems to Dean like absolute days, Alec's tremors subside a little, and he focuses on Dean's face, the features completely freaked and worried beyond belief. "G-Guess I got s-some 'splainin' to do…" he says unevenly.

"Damn fucking straight you do!" Dean shouts, the rage merely a transference of his insane distress. "What the hell was that?"

Alec tries to sit up, but Dean pushes him back into the reclined chair roughly; Alec had realized shortly after the attempt that his muscles still twitched enough to not be trustworthy in sitting up anyway. "They're called seizures," he snarks, and rather wants to shrink away from Dean's DEFCON 1 glare. "Okay, fine," he concedes, recognizing that beneath the glare is a shitload of concern. "Manticore thought they made us all perfect, genes totally flawless, whatever, but they hadn't figured out we had a serotonin deficiency until it was too late, and if we don't get tryptophan supplements, well…seizures."

Although the shakes are never exactly _good_, Dean finds himself in a weird sort of gratefulness that Alec isn't epileptic or something. He's not sure how he'd be able to finagle that medical condition. Then Alec's words strike something in his memory. "Wait a second," he says, rifling through the fuzziness from when he'd been kidnapped. "That guy that yanked me…he gave me trypto-whatever, I think. I didn't know why, just thought it was some sort of nasty drug again."

"White thought you were me," Alec explains, he and Max having decided that's the most likely cause. "He knew that transgenics had that problem, and didn't want to risk you seizing, because that'd delay his torture or something, so he gave you the drug, not knowing that it'd overdose you."

"Gee, thanks," Dean says sarcastically. "'Preciate that. It's just my luck to overdose on something boring while being chemically torn apart. At least _they_ didn't resort to lame ploys like that."

Alec thinks he knows what Dean's talking about, or at least what Dean had termed "them" as. Not that he believes him, _obviously_, and he doubts Dean'll tell him any more than he already had, but still. The least he can do is humor the guy. After all, Dean had witnessed him succumbing to his Manticore limitations, almost the most vulnerable he could be in front of another person.

Now that he thinks about it, actually, even Max hadn't seen him with the seizures. He guesses she's probably assumed that Manticore had fixed the deficiency, and so just hadn't asked about it. Or simply didn't care.

As if Dean sensed what Alec was ruminating over, he asks, "Well, what do you and Max do when this happens? I mean, you've got to have pills, right?"

Alec refuses to meet Dean's eyes for a moment. "We ran out," he says. At Dean's disbelief, he runs a quivering hand over his damp face. "Okay, _I _hadn't run out. But Dalton had, and—well, I wasn't going to let _him_ experience this. I just told him we had some extra."

Dean wants to say something like, "You're an idiot, Alec," but can't bring himself to do so. Primarily because, Dean realizes with less shock than he'd expected, it's the exact thing that he would do. For Christ's sake, he'd sacrificed his _soul_ for Sam. If anyone could relate to Alec's putting himself in death's way, it's Dean. He idly wonders if it's in his genes, or if it's just something the two of them happen to have in common.

"You're not going to tell me that was a stupid thing to do?" Alec asks, frankly a little floored.

Dean's mouth raises in a self-deprecating smile. "Not this time," he answers. "Let's just say I get where you were coming from."

Alec knows he shouldn't press, but he can't help it. He knows almost zilch about Dean's background—his real background, not some Fed's file—and it's about damn time Dean tells him something. "What do you mean?"

Silence falls between the two men, a silence that isn't incredibly tense, but also isn't incredibly warm and fuzzy, either. His head is still spinning, but Alec ignores it, in favor of sitting up straight, trying to show Dean he was just in a brief moment of weakness that _for sure wouldn't happen again_. To Alec's surprise, Dean sits on the edge of Alec's seat, his eyes sharp, like he's taking in absolutely every muscle movement Alec has.

"You're making me kinda uncomfortable," Alec comments flatly, attempting to glare, but knowing his glazed eyes aren't doing the job. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

Dean falters, but then gives an unhappy smile. "You kind of reminded me of Sam, to be honest," Dean confesses. Alec frowns, affixed. "Sam had…visions. Like, premonitions. He'd have killer headaches that he couldn't prevent. I kind of had to do the same thing with him as I did you. I mean, I didn't give him milk or anything, and you're not warning me about someone getting murdered, but…"

Alec stares at Dean like he's seeing him in an entirely different light. And, truthfully, he is. Talking about Sam to him was more than Dean had ever done to anyone else Alec knows. "Visions, huh," he says, feeling like he's treading on dangerously thin ice. He isn't sure whether this mention of Sam was a one-time thing, or if Dean would actually open up a little. "So you're able to accept that, uh, that Sam was psychic, but you can't accept that I was made in a lab by megalomaniacs? That we just might share the same DNA?"

Dean laughs, and Alec thinks it's the closest to a real one he's ever heard thus far. "Well, Sam had a reason for getting the visions. Now, if you really were a shapeshifter, I could accept it. Granted, by this point you'd be long dead with silver in your blood, but I guess that's beside the point."

Alec's face is carefully schooled. "At least you're not accusing me of being a fictional creature anymore. That's progress."

"Fictional?" Dean repeats incredulously. "Let me tell you something, kid: you wouldn't be saying that if one framed you for murder and almost got you S.W.A.T.-sniped."

"You're seriously playing that shapeshifter card again? And now you're adding that one committed your crimes?"

"Well, the St. Louis and Milwaukee murders anyway," Dean qualifies. "But I was the one that took the fall for it. I had my own personal Fed, actually. Who definitely wasn't shy on guns. Really, it wasn't necessary to bring out the snipers. They should've known I'd kick their asses regardless of what ammo they used."

Alec falls quiet, avoiding Dean's sight. Dean, of course, picks up on this instantly.

"What?" he asks. "You're not going to go into convulsions again, are you?"

"Not now," Alec says, knowing he will need to get some tryptophan at one point. He can't use milk forever. "It's just—you saying snipers, I…that is…"

"Oh. Right."

Dean looks at the asphalt of the parking lot as if it can give him the answers he wants, but the blacktop tells nothing.

"Why'd you stay?" he asks abruptly.

"What?" Alec sputters, the question entirely unexpected.

"At—At Manticore," Dean clarifies. "Why'd you stay? They make you kill people, they give you this brain deficiency that gives you seizures, but you stayed. Why?"

Alec swallows. He'd thought he was past this, that he and Dean had been in the trenches long enough, so to speak, that he could confess this. But his brain and his mouth aren't communicating very well.

"Rachel Berrisford," is the only thing Alec offers.

Dean waits for elaboration, but Alec might as well have slammed a door in his face for all the decryption he'll give. Dean makes a note to bring it up again; it's obviously something that's grating Alec's heart from the inside out, and Dean intends to find out what it is. After Sam, that is. Sam comes first. Always.

"All right, so where can we get this medicine stuff for you?" he asks instead, changing the subject to one a little less soul-wrenching.

Alec brushes his hair out of his eyes and looks up at Dean, glad for the switch. "It's not Tylenol," he says. "You can't just get it out of a drugstore. In T.C., we put together a tac team and either arrange a meeting with black market dealers, or else just steal it from pharmaceutical companies. Neither option is doable between just you and me."

"I can—I mean, I can finish the rest of this myself," Dean says with forced indifference, "if you need to…you know, get back to Seattle. Fix yourself up."

Alec laughs. "This ain't my first brush with the shakes," he dictates, putting as light a tone on it as possible. "And I didn't travel this far and put up with your moodiness just to turn back now. I can subsist on milk for a while; or at least until we find Sam. Besides, I really, _really_ don't want to face Hurricane Max right now."

Dean withholds his smile, and pats Alec's knee once before going back around to his side of the car.

Once the mileage signs add Asheville to their list instead of just Charlotte, Alec decides it's time to bite the bullet. "Okay…so what exactly are we supposed to say?" he asks. "Our government may not be as up to snuff as it was back ten years ago, but, and this does pain me to admit, they're not _totally_ decrepit. They're not just gonna let two randoms bust in there and hand over sat data."

Dean gives Alec a smirk of mischief, a glimmer in his eyes of which Alec is curious—and more than a little apprehensive—to find out the cause. "Who says we're going in as randoms?"

He fears.

* * *

"Wasn't that where we were supposed to go?" Alec inquires, looking behind him at the street they just passed which would lead to the NESDIS facility.

"We gotta do two quick things first," Dean announces.

He stops in a small, graffitied erstwhile shopping center, and Alec peers through the windshield to see a rundown formal attire store. "You've got to be kidding."

Dean shoves him out of the car, then gets out himself. "Figure out my size," he says. "If you're done before I am, go to the car and _stay there_."

"Where're you going?"

"You got your specialties, I got mine," says Dean cryptically.

Alec exhales in frustration. "Who woulda thought undermining the law and all mores of society would be the only things that make you happy?"

"Happy" isn't quite the word Dean would use, but he will say that reverting back into these such activities is bringing back good memories. He tries not to imagine Sam rolling his eyes and reminding him of how twisted he is, even as Sam himself breaks into a house or building. "Yeah, well," Dean shrugs, walking backwards away from Alec, "what can I say? Doesn't matter if it's in 2008 or 2021—laws still annoy me. And I feel it's my duty to right them."

"Dean!" Alec yells after Dean's retreating back, frustrated. Dean, predictably, doesn't respond, leaving Alec in front of the store. "_Dick_."

However, despite Alec's irritation, he walks into the establishment anyway. The cashier, sketchy as he himself is, eyes him seedily, and Alec really tries to ignore him. He finds two similar, mostly clean suits, one of them only slightly bigger than his size to accommodate Dean's musculature. Alec's fine with the way he's built—lean builds are ideal for sneaking and creeping—but Dean _does_ have the extra brawn, and Alec isn't so cruel as to purposefully buy an ill-fitting monkey suit. Maybe for Logan, but not Dean. Forking over most of the hustled pool money to the cashier, Alec takes his purchases and sulks back to the Mustang, chucking the suits in the backseat.

He's still sitting there twenty minutes later, the only things changed being his level of impatience and thoughts to just get out and find Dean himself. Before he can kick the man's ass, though, Dean slides into the seat next to Alec, the tiniest bit of color in his up-till-now-gray cheeks. He hands something to Alec, stowing the other in the door handle compartment. Perturbed, Alec opens the black fold and is legitimately surprised to see a small picture of himself looking stoic, below it a fake signature and name, and next to it a shiny gold badge.

"'NSA'?" Alec reads, eyebrows shooting up. "You're not serious."

"As a heart attack," Dean confirms without missing a beat. "Just go in with confidence, and pretend you're the awesome drummer from Black Sabbath, and you're good."

Alec stares at Dean, unamused. "It's entirely too scary how easily you faked this. And how the hell did you get my picture?"

"Pot and kettle, dude. Thought you were some big man assassin."

Alec glares.

"As for the picture, easy," Dean replies. "Just took a picture of myself and…de-aged it a bit."

"This is never going to work," says Alec dubiously. "You can't bullshit NESDIS with a home copy machine."

Dean puts on a face of lifelong suffering. "Give me some credit," he says. "I've been doing this longer'n you've been alive. It's foolproof."

"Words of the damned, my friend," Alec warns. "If this crashes and burns, I am _not_ going to jail for you."

As Dean puts the car into gear and speeds onto the freeway, he looks sideways at his passenger. "Oh, please," he remarks. "Like Max wouldn't bust you out without a second thought."

Alec chokes on the Coke he'd—evidently stupidly—sipped. "'Scuse me?" he says in disbelief. "I'm the bane of her existence."

Dean laughs, grinning shrewdly. "You transgenics are so freaking blind, it's hilarious."

"Huh?"

"Why would she keep saving you, dumbass?" Dean asks, glad that it's Manticore's fault Alec's clueless. "I sincerely doubt she'd do that if she hated you. And in any event, she's more of a bitch to you than anyone else—even me. Playground rules."

Alec's brow furrows at this Dean-observation. It's easy to deny it; after all, Dean's a crazy psycho murderer. (Right?) "I think White scrambled your brain," Alec scoffs. "You're _way_ off base here."

Dean sighs. "The last time I did this was for Sammy in the eighth grade," he muses in exasperation. "Let me tell you, you may've got x-ray vision or whatever, but you sure as hell didn't get my perceptiveness."

"I resent that," Alec objects hotly, choosing not to ruminate on the fact that he's sounding like a human twelve-year-old. "I've got a one-ninety I.Q., thanks."

"How nice for you," Dean deadpans, irked at all the jokes of his supposed stupidity he'd gotten. "Firstly, I've got a one sixty-two, and I wasn't even made in a test tube, so shut it. Secondly, quantum physics ain't helping you in figuring out if a chick likes you."

Alec makes a noise of protest. "I know quite well when a girl likes me," he says confidently. "I do pretty well in that department."

"Did _not_ need to know that," Dean winces in disgust. "Make you a deal. You're good at telling if someone's lying, right?"

"Yeah…" Alec affirms, guessing that Dean already knew this, considering he's pretty good at the same.

"Great. Then when next you see Max, ask her straight out. Her face'll tell you the rest."

Alec crosses his arms over his chest, sinking lower in his seat. "You're crazy," he mutters.

"So I've been told," Dean answers easily, pulling up alongside the curb by a gas station. Handing Alec his suit and grabbing his own, he promises, "But not in this, I'm not. Lying is my specialty, and awesomely enough, it works for other people, too. Now get your ass changed. We got work to do."


	30. Chapter XXIX: Down the Rabbit Hole

A/N: Same stuff applies as in the first chapter. Oh, and unfortunately neither _Supernatural_ nor _Dark Angel_ belongs to me. Just this.

A/N part two: Specific episodes of _Supernatural_ mentioned are: "All Hell Breaks Loose, Part I," "Hunted," "Mystery Spot," "No Rest for the Wicked," and "Lazarus Rising" (from which both references and city liberties are taken). Specific episodes of _Dark Angel_ mentioned are: none. I've slipped in a line from _Leverage_, by the way, because it's awesome. Yay to those who find it.

A/N part three: This chapter was delayed because my computer hard drive crashed. I had to leave it with Apple for a few days in the hopes that they'd be able to restore it, and remarkably, they were. There's some stuff that's not as it was before, which'll take some time to sort out, but I've got most of it back. So hopefully, no more delays. It wasn't my fault, promise.

Oh, the end of that last episode of _Supernatural_? Slayed me. Slayed me DEAD. I'm only halfway through tonight's episode, and already it's friggin' soul-crushing…

* * *

**Of Desire and the Status Quo**

_**Chapter XXIX: Down the Rabbit Hole

* * *

**_

Alec's no stranger to adopting aliases, and he's never had much nervousness regarding it, but as he and Dean approach the NESDIS office in a cheap suit and ID that he doesn't quite have faith is legit enough, accompanied by a man who's supposed to be dead and whose sanity is still up for debate, he does have a certain level of apprehension.

Of course, looking at Dean, he sees a man totally at ease and, if Alec'd be so bold to think it, excited. It's this unrivaled confidence that sets him to a comparative state of _okay_, and he follows Dean into the lion's den, so to speak, hoping both that these government officials don't recognize him as the co-leader of the transgenics, and that he doesn't fuck this up.

Well, come to think of it, there's also one other thing that worries him.

"You sure this'll work?" he mutters, rolling his shoulders in the tux that's still not fitted quite right. "I mean, there's bound to be some people here old enough to remember you."

Dean, having been through the motions since he was four and thus with no such reservations, rolls his eyes. "Calm down," he chides. "I've done this hundreds of times. And stop your squirming."

"Look, I just—"

"Can I help you?" asks the "receptionist"— who Dean thinks definitely has a Glock hidden somewhere beneath the desk—effectively cutting off the whining.

Giving Alec a virtually unnoticeable elbow to the ribs to do the same, Dean withdraws his badge, dropping it open to show Michaelson (or so the nameplate suggests). "NSA Agents Bloom and Sarzo," he introduces with practiced ease, knowing Alec won't get the reference but hoping he'll play along. "We need to access your GPS feeds."

Taking their badges—thankfully, Alec had caught on quick enough and mimicked Dean's actions—and giving them a careful study before handing them back, Michaelson returns his eyes to Dean. He still has that face of suspicion (hey, it's not Dean's fault he doesn't look like a Fed), but as far as he can tell, the credentials are authentic.

"GPS?" asks Michaelson. "What for?"

Dean puts on his don't-ask-questions-son face. "Matter of national security, Mr. Michaelson," he says stiffly. "All I can tell you is that we've got a P.O.I. who we can best tail through his cell phone. The satellites we got aren't broad enough. Now, how about you stop being belligerent and let us in, huh?"

Michaelson purses his lips, obviously not happy taking orders from a man twenty years his junior and better looking to boot, but unable to refute perceived chain of command. NESDIS operatives have a lot of clearance, but NSA trumps them any day of the week, even now. Unfortunately for Michaelson.

Getting up from his desk in unhindered annoyance, Michaelson leads Dean and Alec over to a door on the other side of the room, swiping a keycard, the red light changing to green with a soft beep.

"Go down this hallway," he says briskly. "You'll be talking to Agent Bradford there who'll accompany you to where the monitors are."

"You're a good man," says Dean condescendingly, clapping Michaelson on the shoulder. Alec looks on with masked shock at the brazenness, finally seeing first-hand how Sam and Dean had worked back in the day, how in tune with one another they must have been to deal with the nuances and off-the-script one-liners Dean must've pulled. Alec's not really sure what to do with the revelation.

But Dean's grabbing his arm with undue force and hauling him through the door, not once looking back at the disgruntled employee.

As Michaelson had said, there's a man at the end of the hall whom, as Dean and Alec approach, already looks more amicable than Michaelson had been. His face is stoic, and his stance is that of ex-CIA—it's a very distinctive stance—but Dean sees the man scrutinize him and Alec, and the way he relaxes the slightest bit almost makes Dean smile. He may have spent millennia in Hell, but he's still a charming son of a bitch.

"Gentlemen," says Bradford, offering his hand for them to shake.

They both do, Dean relaying in the gesture the right amount of firmness that so clearly portrayed _We are both badasses with guns stored strategically on our persons and martial arts moves that can knock someone out in two seconds flat, and we both acknowledge this, so let's be civilized people so we can go about this as painlessly as possible and leave each other to our jobs._

Alec's is more along the lines of _I don't know who you are, and I'm just going along with this dude who I may or may not be slightly afraid of, so please don't hold me accountable for anything the jackass does. Oh, and nice tie._

"Agent Bradford, I presume," says Dean unnecessarily. The man nods and motions for Dean and Alec to follow him.

"Michaelson said you're looking into someone," starts Bradford a little too casually. "What's he done to alert the NSA?"

Dean feels Alec sneak a glance at him, but he doesn't return it. He might have if Alec were Sam, but since he can tell that Alec's hyper-intelligent brain is doing its best to keep up the NSA guise and follow Dean's lead, he'd rather have Bradford's attention solely on him. Dean's not downplaying Alec's talents, he's not, but this is something that absolutely _cannot be messed up_, and damn it, Dean's going to ensure it.

"We don't have anything solid on him yet," answers Dean unconcernedly. "Which is why we haven't caught him up to this point. We're hoping that if we can surveil him through satellite and get a better read that way, we can put him behind bars and get a good night's sleep, you know?"

Bradford chuckles, telling Dean he raised no _I sincerely doubt you're actual NSA_ flags. "I hear that," he says. "Had some of those cases myself when I was back in Langley. They're a right pain in the ass."

When Bradford walks a few steps ahead to swipe his keycard to open another door, Dean looks at Alec with a smirk, fully enjoying Alec's expression of part-awe, part-incredulity. "Don't look so surprised," he says quietly. "I told you I'd done this a million times."

"Guess your crime reports on how you're a cocky—"

"But successful."

"—_con artist_ weren't lying."

Dean lets Alec's backhanded sort-of-compliment slide, in deference to Bradford holding open the door for them to walk through. The room is a mass of computers, screens, maps, and a conference table, but Dean only requires one computer to do what he needs to.

"You know how to use these, I presume?" asks Bradford. "Haven't consulted with the NSA much, but I think you all use the same software, more or less, as we do."

"No worries," answers Dean. "Junior here's big on the pre-Pulse button-mashing stuff. Trial and error, right?"

Bradford laughs and shakes Dean's hand again. "Holler if you need anything else," he says. "And I hope you get the guy you're looking for."

Bradford leaves the room, shutting the door with a click, and Dean's smile falls. "Me, too."

Alec waits a few moments, but when Dean doesn't move, he shoves him none too gently. "Come on, dude."

Dean turns around to look Alec in the eye, and then walks past him to a terminal. The screen looking not dissimilar to that in an old spy movie, Alec's ready to call Bradford back in to help, but Dean floors him once again. His fingers typing quickly, Dean manages to bring up a screen that asks for a number, and he inputs the ten digits, waiting for a result.

"How do you know Sam's still going to be using that phone?" Alec dares to ask.

Dean looks up at Alec, and gets an expression that's one of odd fondness. "Are you kidding?" he says mildly. "What don't I know about that kid?

"Devil's advocate here," says Alec timidly, "it's been thirteen years. Sam might'a changed, might've broken his cell or something."

It's a legitimate qualm, Dean concedes; however, not only is he reasonably certain on his intuition, but he simply can't bring himself to fathom that they would have lost their only lead. If Sam had, in fact, done something with his cell and this didn't work…Dean doesn't know what he'll do. He has _no other way_ of finding his brother short of closing his eyes and pointing someplace random on the map and hoping it's right.

So he simply stares at Alec tersely. "Not on this he hasn't."

Alec takes the cue and shuts up.

To his amazement, the satellite beeps once and then starts triangulating the cell phone's location. Dean leans within inches from the screen, his right knee bouncing in a duality of nervousness and impatience as Alec watches on, unable to pinpoint any particular emotions of his own. The arrows circle around the map of the U.S., then move to the Midwest, then to Illinois, then to a fairly wide circle slightly northeast of the state's center. It starts to zoom in further than that, but suddenly sputters, turns red, and the text at the bottom proceeds to read "Signal Lost."

Dean stares at the monitor for a second, before exclaiming, "_Fuck_ it, Sammy."

"What happened?" asks Alec, unable to see very well past Dean's head at what had caused the ire.

Dean runs a hand roughly through his hair, messing up the mostly neat style he'd had going on for the ruse, and turns around. "He must've shut his cell off while the satellite was triangulating," he answers. "And you can't locate a phone without the power on, even if it's from the GPS."

"Why would it be shut off?"

"Only one or both of two reasons," says Dean somberly. "He's being tracked, and has crushed the SIM card, or he's on a hunt and the phone would distract him. Even if turned on silent, Sam's weird about that."

Alec doesn't miss the present tense Dean's using, and wonders what it means. Really doesn't want to contemplate it. Not now.

"So…so which one do you think?" he asks instead, wary to dispute either theory of Dean's, even though they both sound stupid to him.

Sighing, Dean holds up two fingers. "On a hunt," he says. "The only time we'd ever destroyed the phone cards was when a vamp who already wanted to gun down Sam was on our trail. Somehow, I doubt that's the case here."

Alec doesn't feel like asking him about the so-called vampires. He's still adjusting to the thoughts of demons. "Okay, so…what? How do you intend to find him if you don't have his GPS?"

"Well," says Dean curtly, like Alec should have known, and points to the computer screen, "the last triangulation this showed contained six counties in Illinois: Woodford, Livingston, La Salle, Ford, McLean, and Grundy. Now we just have one thing to do—look for omens."

"Omens." Alec doesn't need to know specifics to definitely _not_ like the sound of it. "Please tell me it doesn't include talking to anyone named Damien."

Dean rolls his eyes impatiently, primarily for the reason that he's hoping this time when they look for the signs it won't be as disastrous as when he'd tried with Zero. "_No_," he emphasizes. "Omens. _Demonic_ omens. Crop failures, electrical storms, mass animal killings, that kind of thing. Maybe expand it to weird deaths, exsanguinations, missing hearts, what have you. Just to account for if Sam might be hunting a spirit, vampire, werewolf, whatever, in the area. If I remember right, Illinois State is around where the sat signal stopped that is probably still standing; hopefully, their library won't be torn to shreds."

"Dude. What the hell?"

"Come on," Dean says, clearing the search for Sam and grabbing Alec's collar, dragging him in the opposite direction they'd come. "We have research to do. And if you make a crack about me in a library, I'll shoot you."

"So, ISU, then," Alec says as they walk back to the Mustang. He undoes his tie and unbuttons his collar fastening; he's never liked suits much.

Dean nods, duplicating Alec's actions and shrugging off his jacket, throwing it in the backseat. "Yeah," he answers. "The omens—or newspaper articles—will pinpoint Sam's location. I hope."

* * *

As a result of Alec's body wearing itself out from the seizures and that he's come to more or less trust Dean, he falls into a light sleep as Dean drives toward Illinois, the warmth of the heater and the flat road keeping him in unconsciousness. Dean had intended to roll down the window and maybe even find a not so shitty radio station, but Alec looks much like Sam had occasionally when he'd pass out against the cool glass—God knows Dean's a sucker for the innocent puppy repose—and so restrains from making any noise.

It's another good ten hours to Illinois, as far as Dean's calculated, and he knows he should probably rest his somnolent body, but it's one of the very rare times that Alec is apparently feeling comfortable enough to (intentionally) make himself vulnerable in front of someone else. Given that, Dean doesn't want to jeopardize it. Fuck if he knows why.

It's well past dark by the time Dean pulls up into the school parking lot, glad that permit-only spaces are no longer in effect. He only has to barely tap Alec's shoulder before the X5 jolts awake, hands already balled into protective fists. Once he realizes it was Dean, though, he lets the tenseness out of his muscles, and looks around.

"We're here?" Alec asks.

Dean chuckles, "You slept for ten hours, man. That epilepsy thing took a lot out of you, I guess."

"It's not epilepsy," Alec negates tiredly, pinching his nose to clear his head.

"Whatever," replies Dean. He points to the clothes balled up at Alec's feet and commands, "Get dressed."

When both are back in their street attire and Alec's mostly awake again, they walk onto the campus as if they'd done it every day. With his telescopic vision, Alec studies a directory before Dean can even make it out, and guides them to the library. It's more dilapidated than Dean imagines it was a decade ago, but as they enter, the stacks and books are more or less intact.

Dean walks up to the wan librarian, crafting a false smile. "'Scuse me, ma'am," he says politely. "Could you tell me where the newspaper archives are, by chance?"

Without stopping her cataloguing, she points deeper into the building and to Dean's right.

"Thank you," he replies, signaling Alec to follow him.

"What are we looking for, specifically?" Alec asks. "These 'omen' things, I mean. Just storms and beheadings and stuff?"

"Anything out of the ordinary, not necessarily things that obvious," says Dean, perusing a paper from three weeks ago. "Obits are usually good places to start."

"Obituaries," repeats Alec, wondering why he's even surprised anymore. He grabs a random paper, this from thirteen days previous. 'And what if I find something weird?"

"Look for similar events," Dean answers, and tosses aside his edition to pick up another. "If we're lucky, there'll be just one town that crops up."

Alec gets bored and exhausted quickly, even though he can easily read twenty thousand words a minute, and recount them all. He's somewhat worried that he might be missing something, that he'll be the cause for them not finding Sam. He doesn't know what he'd do if it was his fault that Sam skipped town before they could locate him.

It's not like they could go back to the NESDIS office without rousing precarious suspicion—Sam would be off the grid once again, and Alec has a horrible feeling that Dean would retreat back into himself, and not even Alec could snap him out of it. Worse, that Dean would never forgive him.

Fortunately, Dean doesn't appear to lose hope, regardless of the fact that he's accumulating a not trivial stack of newspapers, as Alec is. Alec glances at his watch, sees that it's been nearly an hour and a half since they'd arrived at the ISU campus. "Dean," he says slowly, setting aside his paper regrettably. Dean doesn't meet his eye, just flips through the old pages, skillfully weeding through the inane articles.

"Hmm?"

"Should we—I mean, have you—have you gotten any clues?"

This time, Dean does tear his gaze from the text. "You trying to say something?"

"No, I just—" Alec pauses. He shouldn't be _afraid_ of Dean, not after all they'd been through. "Yes," he amends determinedly. "I don't think we're going to find anything if we haven't already. We can figure out a different way to get Sam."

"You don't," replies Dean in an odd tone. With an amused grin, he holds up three pages from two different newspapers. "Who says I haven't found anything?"

Alec frowns and comes around the table to Dean's side to lean over his shoulder. Dean normally would punch him in the arm—he _doesn't like_ when people read over his shoulder—but truthfully, Dean's too excited—_excited_—to care.

"All right," he says, his voice between educational and anticipatory, "the obit got my attention first, and the rest fit together. This dude, Allen Hanks, was found mauled three months ago in a forest a couple miles from Pontiac; two years ago, a woman, Delilah Ludovich, died—same cause, same forest. Then, six days ago, another woman, Katherine Reichert."

"Okay, well, that's weird, but not necessarily anything," hedges Alec.

Dean rolls his eyes. "Did I mention the heart attacks?" he asks. "_Before_ they were mauled? Kinda like somethin' scared them to death _before_ something sliced 'em up, huh?"

Alec's skeptical. Granted, wolf attacks aren't _that_ common this close together, let alone in this area, but the victims were found in a forest. Surely this wasn't something to cause founded alarm? "No offense, Dean, and I'm sure you were probably good at this kind of crap years ago, but I don't see how this leads to Sam."

"There was no 'probably,' kid," snaps Dean. "I was damn fucking good at this. Sam 'n I killed more things and saved more people than most hunters did. And apart from us dying once—well, me technically 'bout a hundred times, but that didn't really count—we rarely got more than cuts and bruises. Given the life, I say that constitutes damn fucking good."

"Jesus, sor—wait, what?" Alec stops midsentence, Dean's words catching up with him. "_Died_? _A hundred times_? You _and_ Sam? The hell do you mean by that?"

Dean clears his throat, having let slip the information without meaning to. "Nothin'," he covers. "Figure of speech."

Alec raises an eyebrow. "No figure of speech I've ever heard."

"Just trust me on this," says Dean, changing the subject. "Sam'll be there."

Alec looks down at the newspapers, not really seeing them, and closes his eyes for a few seconds. "Dean, look…" he starts, running a finger along the cracked grain of the table. "I want to trust you, really—"

"You've done so this far," interrupts Dean levelly. "Somethin' change?"

"I just—what if you're looking for a hunt that's not really there, and you're just hoping Sam is? What if it isn't even Sam's cell, but someone else who picked it up? I mean, what if Sam's…if Sam's d—"

"_Don't_," snarls Dean, grabbing a fistful of Alec's shirt so quickly that, if Alec hadn't been certain Dean were human, he'd've said he blurred. "Sam's not dead, he's _not_." He sees the shock in Alec's irises and lets go of the shirt. "I've told you before. If you wanna leave, _leave_."

Alec puts his hands on the table and leans toward Dean. "It's not that I want to leave," he disagrees softly. "I just don't want—I don't know. I just don't want you to get yourself into trouble—life or death trouble—or die yourself or somethin' because you're so caught up with finding Sam that you make some mistake."

Dean's quiet for a couple minuets, studying Alec's face. "What, you think I'm so goddamned messed in the head that I'd make some stupid mistake?"

_Well, uh, kinda_, Alec wants to say. He doesn't, however, given that he's thinking that's the absolute farthest thing from a good decision.

He simply doesn't answer at all. He senses that either answer he gives would backfire one way or another. Instead, he reiterates, "I'm not gonna leave."

"Great," replies Dean, keeping his tone purposely flippant. "Then let's go. Pontiac has our names on it."

He makes quick work of putting the newspapers away, and Alec gets up laboriously, wondering if Sam had ever gotten annoyed with this attitude of Dean's. Moreover, Alec wonders if he ever _would_ leave. What would it take to coerce him to abandon the guy and hitch or hotwire back to Seattle? Is he that desperate for someone new—a brother?—that he's willing to trust a man that Alec does deem as screwed in the head?

He's knocked back into reality when Dean breezes right on past the librarian, and Alec barely has time to throw out a thank-you before Dean's started up the car and put it into gear. Alec finds himself hurrying after him, the entire way a certain part of his brain telling him to stop, damn it, _stop_, but Alec doesn't. Can't, for whatever godforsaken reason.

Dean burns rubber and pulls out onto the highway, confident in where he's going. Alec's too strung and self-serving to propose that they actually look on a map to locate the route to Pontiac. He just goes with the strangely comforting presumption that Dean's been this way before, and tries not to eye the map (or his fleeting sanity) longingly.

* * *

When first they roll into the city, Alec thinks that Dean was misreading the papers, that, for all they know, Sam's in Georgia. Pontiac looks like every other town Alec's seen; dim light, garbage in the street, unfinished construction, people not making eye contact with one another.

But Dean doesn't stop in the town. He drives right on through, hands tight on the wheel. Finally, on the very outskirts of the city, he pulls over behind an abandoned warehouse that's but a hundred feet from the edge of a somewhat sparse forest.

He comes around the front of the car with the almost-drained bottle of vodka in his hand, and meets Alec there. "You got a lighter on you?" he asks, picking up a sizable stick from the ground.

"Huh?" Alec replies. He confusedly hands over the requested item even as he continues, "What for?"

Dean casts his partner a glance. "We don't have the stuff necessary to actually kill a black dog, but it sure as hell doesn't like fire."

"Not a fan of canines, I take it," comments Alec, a little frightened. Not because of this so-called black dog, but because of Dean's eyes bright with the prospect of killing something.

Dean chuckles. "I love dogs. Just not ones that disappear and grab you from your bed to maul you in an Illinois forest."

"Oh," replies Alec. He guesses he should've figured Dean would attribute the slayings to something out of a bad horror movie. "Yeah. Of course. That's exactly what I was gonna say."

"Cram it, smartass," Dean growls. He takes a beat, and then reaches into the waistband of his jeans and takes out the stolen gun, holding it out to Alec. "Take this. It won't kill the thing, and it'll probably make it angrier, but it'll slow it down for a couple seconds. It'll give you enough time to get out of there. And for God's sake, if I tell you to get out, you _get out_."

"I think I can hold my own," snarks Alec. "You, not so much. You know, that whole _shoulder thing_ that the good doctor warned about. And besides, I thought we were looking for Sam, not going on a hunt."

"Maybe against human or near-human adversaries you're Captain America," says Dean dangerously, "but not these kinds'a creatures. You follow my lead, hear? Promise."

Alec nods, seeing the touch of worry in Dean's expression. The agreement mostly to humor the man, but he does it anyway.

"As for Sam, that _is_ what we're doing," says Dean. "This is just for defense. If we were going on an actual hunt, I'd be sending you out to occult shops to get stuff that'd cause you to look at me like I'm crazier than ever."

Alec's not entirely sure what to say, so he settles for clarification. "So…objective is to locate Sam, who you think'll be after this thing, and your Flaming Stick of Doom is our best weapon?"

Shrugging, Dean slaps Alec genially on the back. "Come on, coward," he smirks. "Time for you to lose your supernatural virginity."

"That's in no way not incredibly disturbing," Alec grouses, his words falling on deaf ears, Dean already heading self-assuredly into the forest. "At least there's one benefit," he says to himself as he follows Dean. "Max isn't berating me for doing something phenomenally idiotic."


	31. Chapter XXX: Innocence Is the First

A/N: Same stuff applies as in the first chapter. Oh, and unfortunately I neither own _Supernatural_ nor _Dark Angel_. Just this.

A/N part two: Specific episodes of _Supernatural_ mentioned are: "Born Under a Bad Sign." Specific episodes of _Dark Angel_ mentioned are: none.

A/N part three: GAHHHH. I don't know why this chapter was so damn hard to write, but it was. Next one isn't. I know, 'cause I'm nearly finished with it. So. Won't be another *facepalm* three fuckin' weeks.

* * *

**Of Desire and the Status Quo**

_**Chapter XXX: Innocence Is the First Casualty

* * *

**_

"What's this thing look like?" Alec asks, walking alongside Dean and peering into the forest suspiciously.

"Shh," commands Dean in an annoyed growl. "Jeez, you're worse than Sammy was on his first hunt. At least _he_ wasn't as loud as a herd of elephants."

"I just want to know what happens if we find it," Alec carries on, lowering his voice.

Dean keeps walking, but shoots a glare to his left. "You stay back and shut up, that's what," he answers curtly. Sensing accurately Alec's objection (objection _again_, rather), he goes on, "If you try to use your super special awesome skills, you're going to just fuck everything up. You leave this to me."

"I beg your pardon?" gapes Alec anyway. "Just because I didn't grow up fighting creepy crawlies doesn't mean I can't look out for myself just fine."

Dean pauses, putting a heavy hand on Alec's chest. "Look, tough guy," he snarls, "if you never listen to anything else I say—God knows you haven't so far—listen to me now. I'm not going to be responsible for you dying. I'm not going to watch you get torn to shreds. I'm _not_. So don't ask me to."

Alec watches as Dean strides further into the trees, wondering how Dean still manages to surprise him; in this case, with the vehemence of emotion behind Dean's demands. With a long-suffering sigh, he rolls his shoulders and tries not to trip over a branch.

* * *

The day wears on, and Max fears Alec's doing something phenomenally idiotic. "Bastard's going to get himself killed…" she mumbles to the empty air of her office. "Probably get Dean killed, too. Selfish asshole."

"Max don't mean that," comes a gentle voice from her newly opened door.

Max jumps, astonished at how the hell _Joshua_ had managed to sneak up on her. It isn't like the dog-man is exactly _stealth_. She looks up at him in a facsimile of a glare—no matter what Joshua says or does, she can never manage to get legitimately mad at him—in challenge.

"I don't?" she asks doubtfully. "I really think I do. How _dare_ he just up and leave? Not like I made him my Second to help out or anything."

She's sure Joshua would raise an eyebrow if he knew what the gesture was. "Alec confused," he says. "Alec want to know why Sad Fella look like him."

"So do _I_, but you don't see me running off to God knows where doing God knows what—"

"Alec and Sad Fella go find his Sammy," interrupts Joshua, as if the answer was as obvious as breathing. Which, Max neglects to deliberate, it kind of is. "Sad Fella want his Sammy."

She sighs, hating every time she has to disappoint the dog-man. "Josh…it—it isn't as simple as just Dean wanting to find his brother," she says slowly. "Dean's…not right."

Joshua shakes his head. "Sad Fella just want his Sammy," he persists. "He not happy, but if he find his Sammy, he can smile."

It pains her to hear such hope, such raw, unadulterated _hope_ in Joshua's voice, but it's unfortunately misplaced. It's not that she thinks Dean would revert into killing or anything, but she also doesn't think that locating Sam is his only and ultimate objective. In the days of yesteryear, locating _her_ brothers and sisters was her only objective, but then, those were both simpler—ha, if you can term anything in this time "simple"—and, despite what screwing around Manticore had done with her head, she wasn't…what? Crazy? Psychotic? Demented? _Damned_?

Max closes her eyes. Depressed, pitiful, defensive, _off_ensive, misguided…

She doesn't know what to term Dean as anymore. As fast as he had come into their lives, he'd fucked them all up, too. She thinks she should be _happy_ that the son of a bitch is gone. Even more happy that he'd taken Alec with him. She doesn't need the X5's smartass comments anyway. So what if he's good in a fight and can calm down even the most hostile members of T.C.? He's still a thorn in her side that she's glad to get rid of.

"Max just upset now," observes Joshua. "When Alec and Sad Fella come back, you be happy."

Despite herself, Max rolls her eyes. Happy? Fuck _that_.

"And what happens if they _don't_ come back?" Max bites, the tone harsher than she meant, but the question entirely what she wanted to ask. Joshua cocks his head to the side, like she'd presented him with a quantum physics query. "This isn't the first time Alec's up and left. Now he's got Dean's bad influence on him, which is a recipe for disaster. Not to mention they're off on some wild goose chase; you think Sam's actually still _alive_? Doubtful. Alec's already got a target on his back, and now he's made it easier for White, hell, the police, because he's halfway across the country in plain sight."

She's breathing heavily after her rant, staring at Joshua as if goading him to argue, the tautness in her face not only making her look much older than her twenty-one years, but showing just how close to the end of her rope she is. Though it'd hurt her to admit it, having Alec around to help shoulder even some of the brunt of the T.C. responsibilities had been her saving grace. Now that he'd just disappeared, that strain had come back worse than ever.

"Alec come back," says Joshua confidently.

"Sure," says Max sarcastically. "But Dean won't. And now that Alec's got this creepy hero-worship thing going on, how much a help you think he's going to be when he returns? None, that's what. He's gonna go back to being a self-centered, out-for-number-one, immature—"

"Max."

She stops mid-word and lets out the air she'd been inclined to use for another vent. There's sentences inside Joshua's one syllable, and she knows what they are. "What do you think I should do, Josh?" she asks, with a vulnerability the likes of which she hadn't shown since…well, since she told Alec about Ben.

Joshua rubs his neck, unused to people asking _him_ for advice. But in this instance, it's a no-brainer. "Joshua think Max should wait for Alec, for Dean," he says. Max realizes belatedly that Joshua had actually used Dean's name instead of his usual "Sad Fella." She doesn't know what to make of that. "They come back when Dean finds his Sammy."

"Josh, I really don't think the chances of Sam being alive are—"

"Sammy alive," continues Joshua. "Dean felt that Sammy is alive, like Max felt others were alive. Dean will find his Sammy. Like Max."

She really hadn't thought anything Joshua said would whelm her, but at his latest words, she stops short. She'd considered that Dean's desire to locate his brother had some similarities to when she wanted to locate _her_ brothers and sisters, but Joshua's simple statement is, for lack of a better term, eye-opening.

"What do you think will happen?" she inquires. "With…with Alec; and Dean and Sam. Hell if I know why Alec's so attached, but what if when Dean gets to his brother, he doesn't want Alec around? T.C. can't afford to lose him." _I can't afford to lose him_ is unsaid, but both fill in the blanks.

Joshua shakes his head. "Don't know," he answers. "But maybe Dean want Alec _and_ his Sammy."

"I hope so," replies Max. She wouldn't exactly be ecstatic if, say, Alec brought Dean and Sam back to T.C. because they had no other "home," but if that's the only way to keep Alec around, then she'd do it. She'd take the undoubted barrage of complaints from the transgenics over having two Ordinaries join their ranks—however much she thinks the men would grow on them and be able to greatly help on the battle front, unlike, regrettably, Logan or Cindy.

Though even just two days ago she'd say the only reason she'd let the two of them stay is because she wanted to decipher their histories, if she's honest with herself now, that's not right. A plus, sure, but at this point, she's done with complicating her life unnecessarily. It's already convoluted enough without adding more crap to the mix. Maybe once this shit with White, and Clemente, and the whole damn U.S. population calms down, maybe she'd go into it, ask them about what happened.

But now, she's just going to unevenly exhale and try and stave off her remaining curiosity. Of course, there's the part of her that's afraid Logan's been at it (regardless of what he'd said about being done with the Winchesters, his thirst for knowledge isn't easily sated), and that he'll present her with what he'd found. Moreover, she's afraid of what that would be.

"You're right, Josh," she says. "You're always—"

She's cut off, not by Joshua, but by another familiar voice in the doorway. "Um…Max? Could I speak with you out here?" asks Dalton.

Her senses are on rapid alert at hearing the odd color to the normally cocky X6's tone, never mind that his face is schooled, but not enough to where she can't see a sheen of pure terror.

Usually, she would have snapped at him for barging in, but now, she stands up warily and steps around her desk. It's then she spots it. The dim light glints off the silver of what is all too clearly a .38. Pointed directly at Dalton's head, safety off.

Max swallows, walking forward. She goes to the door, and her mouth drops open. The girl looks the same as last time Max had seen her, except for the fact that she's holding Dalton's life in her hands. She flicks her gaze up to Max and smirks.

"Want to join the party, Maxie?" she sneers, still holding the weapon firmly to Dalton's head.

Max stares, unable to say anything.

She watches in horror as Kalinda's eyes turn blacker than coal, and finds she can only utter two words in an uncharacteristic, desperate whisper.

"Dean…help…"

* * *

Thing is, Dean's more than halfway across the country, two time zones over, and quite in the middle of something.

As he proceeds to inform Alec. "Hey, Alec," he says too calmly. "Do me a favor, would you?"

Alec freezes at the strange tone in Dean's question. He's never heard it before, and it's just plain…_weird_. He doesn't want to use the term _nervous_, but… "Sure…?" he replies unsurely.

"Duck."

Alec's been too militarized to ignore an order like that—more than that, he's been with Dean long enough to know this is something different—regardless of how odd the situation, and this time, he's incredibly glad he had been. Scantly a second after he hits the ground, he feels the air above him ripple, and a stream of dirt coat his hair.

He looks up and sees Dean similarly on the ground, a…_thing_…on him that Alec supposes is sort of a shadowy, wolfy-ish something-rather, but a fuckload scarier. "DEAN!" he yells, seeing the man's unmoving and awkwardly-angled form.

He scrambles upright, sprinting over to Dean, his heart pumping faster than it has in a long, long time. It's been years since he's felt sheer panic. He feels it now.

"Dean," he gasps, reaching for his gun and sliding to his knees next to the creature. He aims to fire, but then the creature is shoved off. Alec stares at it, and it's unmistakably dead. He'd ruminate on it more, were it not for the creature to subsequently proceed to disappear, the only sign that it was ever there being an acrid scent of burnt fur in the air.

"Aww, getting worked up over little ol' me," says Dean, sitting up.

And causing Alec to jolt like he'd been electrocuted. "Dean!" he exclaims in shock. That changing quickly to anger, Alec punches him, only barely remembering to lower the velocity behind it at the last second. "You son of a _bitch_."

"You have that little faith in me? Well, damn," says Dean only half-seriously. "You think this is the first black dog I've killed? You can't just gank them on a whim; gotta get 'em pissed first, otherwise they'll vanish. Stabbed the thing before he got one paw on me."

Alec raises and eyebrow and points. "Think again," he observes. "You got nicked, Superman."

Dean puts a finger up to his hairline and it comes away red. "Ah, shit," he says in uninterested disappointment. "Sammy'll _never_ let me live this down."

Alec doesn't respond, catching sight of something in the clearing up ahead. Something that looks an awful lot like—

"Um…Dean?" he asks stiltedly. Dean grunts. "Think we've got another Cujo-related issue going on."

Dean twists around, seeing what Alec had with a groan. The dog's staring at them, teal eyes lethal, but then halts, yelping as if shot. A man and a woman come walking out of the woods, and Dean's eyes widen, his expression not daring to be hopeful, but settling uncertainly on curiosity.

Temporarily rendered silent, he stands up and takes a few steps forward, Alec mimicking the motions, though keeping a guarded eye on Dean.

Then Dean notices something else. The man's hand is outstretched, the black dog still yelping and quivering. Dean doesn't have the enhanced hearing, but Alec does.

"Go ahead," Alec hears from the man.

The woman strides up and slices the dog's head clean from its body with some sort of sparking knife. She turns to the man and smiles viciously. He returns it.

He lowers his hand and the dog's body falls, quickly dissipating like the one Dean had killed. "You cut yourself," he says.

The woman looks down, her hand indeed lacerated. With another all-wrong grin, she holds it up, and the man closes his mouth over the wound, tasting the blood. Alec winces in revulsion.

He glances over at Dean cautiously. The man turning so his face is visible, Dean recognizes him just seconds before Alec. And in those seconds, Dean's entire frame seizes up. Alec uses his telescopic vision, downright _praying_ that both he and Dean are seeing wrong, but they aren't. He'd kept the shaggy brown hair, is still freakishly tall, and wears the same light green jacket as in the surveillance photos. Alec doesn't have to have seen him in person before to know that the man he's looking at is none other than Sam Winchester.

Sam Winchester somehow stopping a killer dog in its tracks with nary an effort and then drinking blood from some bitch who, for a reason Alec doesn't know, is _off_.

To top everything, Dean's got an awful mixture of horror and murder in his face.

And that's just fucking _great_.

* * *

Had Kalinda been an Ordinary, Max—even Dalton—would have disarmed her and had her unconscious in a second flat. But she's a transgenic, as are they, and she knows the same tricks in the book as everyone else does.

More than that, she's got…she's got _Dalton_. Not that Max would allow anyone else from T.C. to get shot, but…she has kind of a soft spot for the twerp, and she'd go so far as to say Alec thinks of him as a little brother. She'd honestly put the status of her safety up in the air if, while Alec were "away," she let Dalton get killed. She'd kiss any chances of Alec sticking around as co-leader (or as _anything_, for that matter) goodbye.

So she follows as Kalinda watches her and simultaneously keeps the gun trained at Dalton's skull, follows her into the main command center. As she finds out quickly, she's the last person to know about Kalinda acting all…strange. Everyone else is either in astoundment, in fury, or just plain confusion. She knows each one is trying to think of ways to incapacitate Kalinda without hurting Dalton, but they'd also come to the same conclusion: if they even moved one muscle that Kalinda didn't like, Dalton's brains would be spread over the floor. And, like Max, whether they have a fondness for the boy or not, they're not going to risk his _life_.

She catches a movement to her right and looks over to see Rade standing by the medical bay doors, her mouth halfway open; Max guesses her words would be something like, "What the fuck is going _on_ out here?" As Kalinda's temporarily not facing her, Max gives the minutest of head shakes to their sole medic, and Rade, however much she may detest taking orders, retreats into the room. Max breathes a silent sigh of relief. At least if things got hairy out here, which she'd bet the rundown toxic waste dump that they will, their doctor—and Dix, to an extent—would be safe.

Kalinda swivels around and forces Joshua around to her other side with merely a glare. Max, forever the martyr, speaks up. "What are you doing, Kali?" she asks. "What's wrong with you?"

Kalinda smirks. "Nothing's wrong with _me_, darlin'," she says. "Though I can't say much for this freak of nature I'm in."

Max attempts to not frown in total bewilderment. (Key word being "attempts.") "Excuse me?" she asks, keeping her voice as level as possible. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Laughing, Kalinda does a very furtive glance around the room to make sure no one's thinking of doing anything she doesn't want them to. They are, but unfortunately can't act on it. "You know, for all the brains you freaks are supposed to have, you sure are stupid." Max stares, and Kali humors her. "You _really_ thought _you_ would come out the Division I favorites in this? As if. Hell, humans won't either, pretentious bastards. It's we that will. All of you forgot about us in your little hissy fit of an electromagnet, but we haven't forgotten. You and all your just-add-water pals are in for a huge treat, Maxie."

"U-Us?" Dalton whispers.

"_Demons_," replies Kalinda with an indulgent tone, as if talking about a long-lost lover.

Max wishes she could break down, perhaps let out a sob, at the simple, horrible irony that not only was Dean _right_—fuck, he was _right_—but he could be _anywhere_. Worse still, with the only other guy that she knows would be able to keep his head. It's a main reason why she'd chosen him as her Second: he kept her in line, made sure that if she were ever to start to get too invested or emotional, he'd bring her out of it. Now he's not here, and it's taking all her willpower not to reduce herself to a crumbling mess.

She's got _all_ of T.C. trusting her with their lives, has Dalton trusting her with his life, and she's one breath away from hyperventilating. She can handle a lot, was made to handle a lot, learned to handle a lot, but…but _demons_? They're not fucking _real_! Or…at least…they're not supposed to be.

_Fuck_.

"What do you want?" Max murmurs, closing her arms around herself, hoping it can keep her together. It's not helping. "What do you want from us?"

"Don't worry, this doesn't have to get nasty," sneers Kalinda—no, not Kalinda, some…_thing_—"not unless you make it difficult."

"Who are you?" Max asks, knowing whatever the thing's answer would be wouldn't make any sense, but would provide some stalling time. In which to do…she hasn't the faintest, but it couldn't _hurt_.

"I got lots of names, you abomination," the thing replies. Max keeps her stare. "But once upon a time, evidently the name Meg seemed to be a favorite."

It doesn't ring any bells—as she'd predicted—but the thing doesn't appear to care. "And you're a demon."

Meg laughs. "More than that, sweetie," she says. "Turns out I was in just the right part of Hell that your buddies' little spell got not only your new boy out, but my sweet ass as well. Quite considerate of them."

Max isn't sure who her "pals" are supposed to be, but there's only one other person about whom this thing could be talking. "Where's Kali?" she asks. The X6 could be often annoying, but Max doesn't wish her _dead_.

Meg makes some expression that Max can only describe as pure, soulless evil. "Oh, don't worry," she remarks. "Kalinda's in here with me. She says 'hi,' by the way."

"How long—"

"Since I got out," answers Meg. Seeing Max's face of shock, she continues, "Drink it in. It was me who helped you and these transgenic freaks get Dean out of the hospital."

Max can't prevent her eyes from widening—she'd guessed that it was Dean Meg was talking about, but hearing her say Dean's name in such a slimy, almost desirous way, sent chills down her spine. "Why?" she asks quietly.

"What fun would it be if I let him die from some human injury?" she shrugs, jerking the gun a little in annoyance. "Dean and I have got…some bones to pick. It wouldn't be any fun to kill him right there."

Max presses a hand over her face, wishing this whole thing were a nightmare, but feeling the…wrongness in the air and knowing it isn't. "What do you want from us?"

"Let's just say you're…bait," Meg relishes. "I didn't think that bomb would be enough, so in case, I went ahead with this."

"_You_ set the bomb?" Max cries.

Meg smiles. "That mutant was going to figure out things that we just couldn't allow until the time was right. The bomb was all too easy to place. For all your distrust of humanity, you're remarkably trusting of your own. You'd never suspect cute little Kalinda." Meg considers for a second, before giving a fake sigh. "Hilarious, really, that you didn't believe Dean, causing him and your lover to bail, when it turns out that he isn't buckets of crazy. I'm guessing the word running through that pretty head of yours is along the line of '_Shit_.'"

Actually, yes, that _was_ her thought, up until Meg's last sentence. Now, it's more _Alec's not my lover, you bitch_. But she's choosing not to mention that; she doubts it's out of the realm of probability that her denial would only bolster Meg's opinion. And protecting Dean would be hard enough for him and Alec without adding a hit on Alec, too.

So, instead, she uses it to find the will she'd had that had allowed her to be able to escape Manticore, to find her siblings, to survive a second stint in Manticore, to lead T.C. She'd dealt with worse than some…_demon_. As much as it's still incredibly hard to believe.

"You sound like some child with a temper tantrum," she needles.

"Max…" Dalton squeaks, frightened.

She tries to portray assurance to him, but doesn't think it worked very well. "And you know what's even funnier?" she continues, making extraordinary extrapolations based on nothing but that she hopes are true. "Dean was in Hell since he died, wasn't he? That's what, thirteen years? And sounded like time moved different, longer, down there. Yet he didn't turn into a demon, or however it is you bastards become evil. You're just a weak, C-list slasher film flunky."

Max's sharp vision sees Meg's eyes tighten the slightest bit, but otherwise, she makes no reaction. She surmises that in Hell—shit, that sounds crazy—you generally get good at hiding emotions.

What's more obvious is how Meg's finger tightens around the trigger, knuckles turning white against the silver of the handle. Dalton tries to be stoic, but a muscle in his cheek spasms, and he blinks quickly for a minute.

It's then that she suddenly views Dalton not as an X6, a deadly killing machine, but a sixteen-year-old boy who was just starting a much greater and fulfilling life (however much it may suck at the moment). She's barely into her twenties herself, and she knows that if it weren't Dalton in this situation but, say, Alec, she'd keep up with the antagonism technique. Hell, she knows Alec would, too.

But this is _Dalton_. She'd never forgive herself if he got killed. She wouldn't forgive herself if Alec got killed either, but at least he's always been prepared for risks like this. Dalton hasn't, isn't. And fuck if she's going to sacrifice him just to stall for some solution that's never going to come. Those only possible ones being hundreds or thousands of miles away.

"Leave him alone," she sighs, staring Meg straight in her black eyes. "Leave him alone. Take me hostage or what the hell ever, but let Dalton go."

Dalton looks at her in a mixture of fear and objection, and she _loathes_ that he does. He's sixteen—he shouldn't be in this mindset. None of them should be. "Max?" she hears Joshua mutter from behind her. She stiffly ignores him; she can't lose resolve now.

"Take me," she repeats, seeing Meg ponder the option. "If you're trying to get Dean here, it's me he's going to care about, not Dalton."

Meg takes in her words. "Huh," she says. "All right."

She shoves Dalton away from her, which under normal circumstances wouldn't do much of anything, but evidently, as Max finds out, the demon inside Kalinda gave her more than even transgenic strength. Dalton hits what's left of the computer terminals, and then cries out as, with an accompanying, horrifying squelching sound, a broken piece of railing pierces through his leg.

Max wheels on Meg, scant centimeters from her face. "The fuck was that?!" she screams, her tone and words echoing precisely what every single other Manticore creation in the room is thinking. "You said you wouldn't hurt him!"

Meg shakes her head with a grin. "I said I'd let him go," she answers. "Didn't say nothin' about not hurting him." She glances over at Dalton's body that's currently being tended to by the transgenics as best they can. "It's a flesh wound anyway. Hear you freaks have fast healing or some shit. I really don't feel like giving a damn."

She moves the gun to Max's chest, using the barrel to push her back. "Now come on, princess," she says, directing Max back towards her office. Then she pauses for a second and turns. "Make sure these monsters don't do anything to mess this up," she announces.

Max looks at her like she's crazy—crazi_er_—wondering what the hell Meg's talking about. Then, however, four of her brethren, two X-series and two transhumans stand up. Their eyes abruptly turn the same pitch black that Meg's are, and they nod. Max feels her face pale, and sees a similar response in everyone else. Dalton's face is the whitest, but she thinks that that has more to do with his blood loss. To top all of it off, she doesn't know if they'll be able to get Rade in, or if the demons would even let her try and fix him up.

Her world is falling apart in front of her eyes, and she can't help but regret with her entire being her at-the-time-unintentional kicking out of Dean, and by extension Alec. She'd give just about _anything_ to have even _one_ of them here now.

As she looks with desperation at the scene straight out of a horror movie and then is forced to turn away by the .38 in her back and walk into her office, she prays that wherever Alec and Dean are, they're safe. Safer than T.C., that is.

Meg commands her to sit on the couch, and with the hand not holding the gun, snatches Max's cell off the desk and tosses it to her. "Call him," she says. "Let him know just what's awaiting if he doesn't get his and Dean's ass back here ASAP. I'll let you figure out the consequences of that one."

Max shuts her eyes, taking the brief seconds to try and wrack her brain for a scheme, but she knows she's fresh out of ideas even before Meg snarls another threat at her.

With fumbling fingers, Max presses the number two speed dial, and wars between hoping beyond hope that Alec picks up, and hoping beyond hope that he doesn't. Most of all, she hopes beyond hope that somehow, some way, Alec would come through, play the white knight to save everyone. Save her.


	32. Chapter XXXI: Absolute Power Corrupts

A/N: Same stuff applies as in the first chapter. Oh, and unfortunately I neither own _Supernatural_ nor _Dark Angel_. Just this.

A/N part two: Specific episodes of _Supernatural_ mentioned are: "Asylum," "Born Under a Bad Sign," "No Rest for the Wicked," "Lazarus Rising," and "I Know What You Did Last Summer." Specific episodes of _Dark Angel_ mentioned are: "Proof of Purchase."

A/N part three: There's a lack of Max in this chapter, but somehow I don't think you guys will hold that much of a grudge, considering it's taken thirty-one chapters for Sam to speak. Also: hell of a finale, huh?

* * *

**Of Desire and the Status Quo**

_**Chapter XXXI: Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely

* * *

**_

Alec watches Dean closely, watches as he starts walking towards Sam and the woman, homicide in his eyes. Alec's not inclined to let this shit go down, and grabs Dean's arm, hard enough to leave bruises but not caring. Dean struggles against his grip, but Alec's got test-tube created strength on his side, which, to Dean's annoyance, trumps his adrenaline and anger.

That's not to say that Alec's disregarding this whole thing. Waiting a moment until he's sure Dean won't bolt, he then follows Sam and the woman quietly, a good distance away. Alec's always been a master at tracking, at stealth and evasion, as has Dean, and so even with Sam's hunter instincts, he doesn't notice he's being followed.

They wait a minute after Sam and the woman get into a yellow convertible, and then Alec starts up their own car and follows. It's a good ten minutes from the forest to where Sam stops, pulling into a parking lot of a trashy motel. Dean is nearly vibrating with held-in anger and confusion, his body stiff in the seat.

They both get out, Alec looking up at the two-letters-out motel sign that reads "Astoria Hotel," and moves towards where he'd seen Sam and the woman go—Room 207—when Dean puts a hand on his arm.

"Stay here," he growls. "I don't want you in there."

Alec's about to hotly object, but sees Dean's intense stare, and knows that this is something to be dealt with between brothers, between Dean and Sam, and while Alec felt he'd built up a kind of kinship with Dean over the last couple days, he's cognizant enough to realize this isn't his party. He nods, and Dean walks purposefully towards the room, shoulders square.

Of course, as much as Alec respects Dean's decision, he's not _stupid_. Harnessing the stealth of his cat DNA, he chases after Dean, hiding behind a pillar lest Dean see him. He hears Dean knock, and despite himself, he holds his breath. There's what sounds like Dean's shove, and then he walks in. It's like being in a war zone, and he can't do shit to stop or help whatever's going to go down next. He's a man of action, and this waiting crap is not his style.

It's fucking annoying (and, though he wouldn't cop to it, worrying) is what it is.

He hadn't been able to hear Dean's—and Sam's—voices from where he was, so it gets his attention when, barely a minute after Dean had stepped in, he starts to hear noises. At first he doesn't make anything of it, but when his finely-tuned ears hear what sounds like a scuffle, he runs into the room.

"HEY!" he yells, seeing Sam and Dean wrestling, Sam wielding a thick knife aimed toward Dean's throat.

Even though Sam's spitting fire from his eyes, his face screwed up in a terrible mixture of rage, desolation, and perhaps a little confusion, and is fighting his toughest, Alec can see Dean isn't doing the same. It's not even that his muscles still aren't what they used to be; Alec knows Dean can fight almost just as well. But here…it's plain to anyone that Dean's not putting his heard into trying to defend himself, even more than just because his left shoulder is nowhere near optimum operation. Alec think sadly that the likely truth is that Dean doesn't want to hurt Sam.

Luckily for Dean's life, however, Alec had hung around, and, not giving a second thought to what Dean might chide him for, blurs in and catches Sam in the chest, throwing the taller man across the room and, most importantly, away from Dean. Sam hits the motel wall with echoing force, Alec using nearly all his strength behind the blow. He's never fought against Sam before, doesn't know Sam's fighting styles or strength, and he isn't going to take any chances. He wants Dean to reunite with his brother, certainly, but if the expense is Dean's lie? Not in a million years.

"Alec!" Dean shouts, with a good amount of breathiness behind it. "I told you to stay put!"

"He was gonna kill you!" Alec snaps back, keeping his peripheral on Sam, who's slowly standing up, wincing.

"What…"

Sam can't seem to say anything coherent, and in spite of the fact that he's obviously one breath away from twigging out again, he manages to stay against the wall, and stares between Dean and Alec. Alec slightly feels guilty—Sam would've already been freaked enough (all evidence to that) with Dean reappearing; having, as far as he knows, twenty-one-year-old Dean and twenty-nine-year-old Dean together would be some definite mind fucking.

Dean turns his glare from Alec over to his brother, despite everything they just saw, the intensity changing from vexation to softness. "Sammy…it's me," he says, in the kind of voice Alec's never heard before. Not in anyone.

Sam's expression doesn't change, that hatred reigning. For Dean, it's strange seeing Sam like this; not just seeing him after two thousand years, but his _face_. His hair is still as floppy as ever, and his stature is still in the realm of a Sasquatch, but…there's a lankness in his hair that makes it hang straight and mussed; Dean recognizes everything Sam's wearing, as if he hadn't bought any new clothes since _that day_; behind his still lightning-fast reflexes are muscles that don't want to be used that hard anymore; there are lines and shadows in his face that had never been there before; worst of all, his eyes, his soulful green-blue eyes, are dead.

Dean looks into them, and it's like looking into a deep well, the water murky and black, the end of it unfathomable and yet you know all that's at the bottom is cold, hard stone.

"D-_Dean_?" Sam breathes, his voice choking on the name, like he hadn't been able to utter it for thirteen years. And he probably hadn't. "But…no…"

"I know," says Dean, trying to withhold a smile (Sam had been drinking _demon_ blood, he attempts to remind himself) and not quite succeeding, "I look fantastic, huh?"

Alec senses it before Dean could ever hope to, and as Sam hurls his silver knife through the air, Alec's hand whips out to catch it only a few inches before it would have buried itself fatally into the middle of Dean's heart. Disgusted, Alec throws the knife downward, the blade sticking fast in the wood flooring.

He looks up to see Sam's face both surprised (Alec presumes it's that, despite Sam's expert aim, the knife had been caught out of midair) and infuriated. With more foreboding, he looks over to Dean's. what once held affection now housed something between more of the deepest betrayal, the likes of which Alec had only seen in that forest, and horror. Dean's been attacked by Sam before, but never when both of them were completely human.

Dean could handle that attack if he were, say, having his brains addled by a psychiatrist spirit, or a demon possessing him, or anything else that's something Dean could fight. And he understands Sam's shock. He'd be the same way if their roles were reversed. But he'd thought Sam would at least hear him out. If Dean were an evil bastard, and he'd wanted to kill Sam, he would have done it already.

He doesn't know what to do know. He could've handled Sam's initial fighting back—hell, he _wants _him to; God knows Dean wants a good fight, given what he saw Sam do—regardless of his weakened shoulder. Fine. But for Sam to have stopped the fighting and then to chuck a knife with a killing blow…Dean has no idea.

"Sammy," Dean whispers, swallowing. If he wants to get to the bottom of this whole fuckup, he needs Sam to know it's _him_. "Sammy, it's me."

"You think your fucking shapeshifter trick is gonna work on me?" Sam shouts, gesturing to both Alec and Dean. "What, you think that by bringing in two of you fuckers to look like Dean is gonna break me? _Fuck you_!"

Dean flinches, and Alec bristles. Truthfully, Alec doesn't give a damn what Sam says about him, but to say that to Dean? Alec eyes the knife in the floor, debating whether to brandish it against Dean's brother.

"_Sam_," Dean implores, taking a step towards his brother, his every move watched by both men in the room. "Just…look." Dean crosses past Alec, reaching down and yanking the knife out. "If I was anything—shapeshifter, revenant, whatever—could I do this with a silver knife?"

To Alec's surprise, Dean places the blade against his forearm and drags it across his skin, a thick line of viscous red fluid welling up along the wound and dripping onto the hardwood. Nothing happens (not like Alec would've known if it did, but it didn't _look_ like anything happened), and Sam glances from the cut up to Dean's face, his eyes narrowing.

"Fine," Sam says harshly. "So the hell what? You could be a hundred different things. But you know something? _You're not my brother, you son of a bitch_. My brother's been dead thirteen fucking years, and he ain't coming back!"

"Dude, stow the yelling," Alec intervenes stepping forward. "There's a reason for all of this, if you'd just hold off on the Terminator crap for two friggin' seconds."

Sam switches his attention to Alec, and Alec's suddenly not sure he prefers this. "That's the best you freaks could do?" Sam sneers. "Transforming into some scrawny imitation of m'brother? Try again."

"I'll list every single damn hunt we've been on, Sammy," Dean says, finally gaining a foothold on his voice. "I'll list everything only I could know about you, I'll prove myself however, Sammy. It's _me_."

For a millisecond, Alec thinks he catches a glimmer of concession in Sam's face, but then it's back to disgust. "Eat me," retorts Sam. "Who the hell knows what you bastards forced out of him? I'm not trusting anything that comes out of your mouth."

"I didn't break," Dean refuses, and it's true. It was stupid, but he'd felt that if he surrendered even the seemingly smallest bits of information, even something as frivolous as Sam's middle name, he'd be losing Sam in a way. He didn't care if the demons knew crap about himself, but Sam? No way. Never. He wouldn't let them tarnish the one solid thing in his life. "You think I would?"

Sam starts to respond, but is interrupted when a woman, dressed in a burgundy t-shirt and cropped shorts, saunters through the door and into the room. "Sam, I got the—"

She stops when she notices it's not only Sam in the room. As she takes the others in, Alec, his over-accurate eyes focusing on her, sees her face pale the slightest bit. He doubts Dean, or even Sam, could tell the difference, but Alec immediately knows something's up.

She's pretty, Alec will give her that, her hair chocolate brown and reaching to right below her breast, her body perfectly proportioned, but in her dark eyes, there's something…_not right_. It isn't even like how Sam's are, all dead inside, it's…Alec can't describe it, beyond just plain _wrong_.

Whether Dean had seen her face whiten or not, however, he sees something entirely different in the young woman's visage. His own face twists into pure hate, the worst Alec's seen, and he adjusts his grip on the serrated blade Sam had thrown at him.

"_Ruby_," Dean growls low in his throat, taking steps towards her and looking more like a predator stalking its prey than Alec knows any of the X's looked. Lydecker would be proud, he thinks sickly. "The fuck are _you_ doing here, you lying, manipulative bitch?"

Sam frowns deeply, glancing between this "Ruby" person—apparently she's of some note, but Alec doesn't know for what—and Dean, shocked. "How did you—"

Dean, deciding he's done with the foreplay, whips the knife, as fast if not faster than Sam had, at Ruby's chest. She only has time to move a little out of the way, taken off-guard not only by Dean's appearance, but also at the out-of-the-blue attack, and the metal sinks itself to the hilt in her sternum.

Alec expects her to drop dead, but she doesn't. She looks in a certain amount of discomfort, but merely grasps the handle and slowly pulls it out, the metal coated in blood. "Dean…" Ruby says, keeping her voice the kind of tone meant to put on a show for someone, but to others make a threat known. Alec feels no compunction to abide. "Looks like you got friends in high places."

Dean's fists are clenched so tight his short nails dig into his palms, near to the point of breaking skin. Tearing his gaze away from her, he instead turns it to Sam, a certain amount of incredulity in it. "Sam?" he grinds out. "What the hell are you doing? _Kill her_!"

"Tell your brother to shut it, Sam," Ruby says, her tone more clipped than she would usually take with the younger sibling. (Older? Alec's not sure how to refer to them…)

Sam flicks his eyes between Ruby and Dean. "What?" he asks hoarsely, no concentrating only on Ruby. "My brother?"

Ruby looks appropriately _Oh, shit_-faced, and then makes to flee the room. As Sam doesn't look to stop her, and Alec thinks Dean's brain isn't firing on all cylinders just yet, he blurs over and blocks her exit. She starts, obviously not expecting Alec's ability.

"Hold up there, sister," he says with a sneer. "You ain't goin' anywhere."

"Get the hell out of my way, pipsqueak," Ruby orders, her threat completely belying the sweet nature her body would imply.

Alec spares the minutest of seconds to glance up at Dean. His expression hadn't changed much since Ruby'd arrived, but there's a shade of pleading in it that Alec picks up. pleading, he'd wager, to stop Ruby. Alec doesn't know how she plays into anything, but it's not like she's done jack thus far to get particularly in Alec's _good_ graces, so.

In another flurry of motion that no one else in the room would be able to pinpoint, Alec simultaneously vises Ruby's wrists together behind her back and puts his free arm across her throat, cutting off her air supply. In another state of affairs, Ruby would be able to fight Alec off like any other human. But Alec isn't any other human, and even though Ruby's demonically enhanced strength might even still be able to match him—as Kalinda had—Alec's got one thing going for him: fury. And protective instincts he'd never experienced before.

Sam moves to, Alec presumes, get him off Ruby, but in a shocking display of loyalty, Dean mirrors the actions, sufficiently preventing Sam from doing so. The two brothers staring at each other like some kind of old west showdown, Alec gives a final yank of his arm, and Ruby slumps to the floor, unconscious.

"She was annoying," Alec says, stepping over her body.

"She's a _demon_," Dean snarls, the abhorrence behind it aligned with that of Hitler towards Jews. That is to say, not favorably.

"A demon?" asks Alec, the indignation on Dean's behalf coming through now that he'd finally accepted—well, "accepted"—their existence, especially now having seen it firsthand. "How did you know?"

Dean snorts heartily, looking very much like he'd like nothing more than to spit on her limp form. "Oh, trust me," he says, and Alec thinks that's a little redundant (he's long since trusted Dean). "After a while Down There, you learn who your enemies are. And how to tell them apart, even if they are possessing some poor chick."

Uneasy silence passes between the three for what could be days, and then Sam puts a hand on the headboard of the closest bed, like he's steadying himself.

His face crumbles, and his eyes mist over. "_Dean_?" he says in a choked kind of voice, staring straight at his brother. "But you…this isn't possible."

"After everything we've seen, you think anything's impossible?" Dean says, taking steps toward Sam, even though Alec watches the both of them like a homicidal kind of hawk.

After a few more moments, Sam suddenly crosses the distance and envelopes his brother in a rib-crushing hug, his eyes squeezed shut, arms unforgiving against Dean's shoulders. Dean returns it in kind, not caring in the least that Sam's worsening his injury, and the stitches are probably groaning against the movement. He's a good four inches shorter than Sam, but neither really gives a shit, Dean's hand coming up to grasp the collar of Sam's shirt in a white-knuckled grip, like trying to convince himself Sam is, after all these years, real.

Alec stands impatiently, not giving up on his suspicion and dislike of Sam so far—evidently Dean had forgotten for the moment that whole demon blood detail—and casting a glance at Ruby's prone body, ready for any sign whatsoever that she might be faking her unconsciousness. He may not be completely familiar with demon antics or the extent of their powers, but he's tensed for anything, won't hesitate for a second to once again stop her. Kill her if he needs to.

Finally, the brothers separate, though still only an arm and a half's length apart. "H-How?" Sam asks coarsely. "Dean, you…Bobby and I _buried_ you."

Dean works his jaw at the mention of Bobby, flashing back to the man's bodiless grave, but ultimately gets a hold of himself. "Why did you bury me?" he counters, the idea festering in the back of his mind ever since he'd awakened in that snake- and Harry Potter wannabes-filled warehouse.

Sam looks regretful. "Bobby wanted you salted and burned," he explains, and Dean gives a _Well, duh_ face, Alec sustaining his disbelief at how _normal_ this conversation seems to be going for the Winchesters, "but I couldn't, Dean. I couldn't. Not yet."

Dean's eyes narrow, their green depths searching for something invisible. "You made a deal," he breathes, almost hoping that's why Sam had drunk Ruby's blood. "You made a deal."

Sam, however, doesn't seem to follow Dean's train of thought. "I tried. I wish I _had_ done it," he admits, his own chest constricting at the vision of himself, smashed, begging that Crossroads Demon. "But no demon would deal, all right? I tried finding Lilith, tried opening the Devil's Gate, tried fucking _everything_. You were rotting in Hell for years, for _years_, and I couldn't stop it. I'm so _sorry_, Dean. I'm sorry it wasn't me. I tried _so hard_ to get you back."

Dean wants to say something like _There's no other way this could have gone down_, or _There's no other reason why you were drinking Ruby's blood_, shake Sam until he confessed that his soul is on the line, that he'd brought Dean back. But he can't, can't get rid of the notion that his return had something very much to do with the Latinating, red-robed snake-people. He can see the raw truth—truth in Sam's trying to resurrect Dean—can read his expressions just as well as he'd always been able to. Even though Sam's older, his features more angular and haunted, he can still read Sam like an open book.

"I believe you," says Dean, exhaling sharply.

"Well, I fucking don't," Alec snaps, and both brothers flinch, like they'd completely forgotten his presence. They turn to look at him, Alec suddenly finding their resemblance uncanny, can see they're really _brothers_, _family_, but he has to get past it for now.

"Alec," Dean chastises, as Sam stares openly at Alec once more.

Who firmly disregards both of them. "Look, it's super that Sam's soul is safe or what the hell ever, but we got at least two questions here: what got you out of Hell, Dean, and what has _Sammy_ here been doing with Demon Bitch?"

Sam's got that _look_ again, and though Alec won't back down, he's still wary. It isn't like Sam's been particularly kind to him thus far. "I've got a question," Sam says in a tone not unlike ice, and directed as much toward Dean as Alec. "Who's he? Tell me he's not another 'shifter…"

"God fuck it!" Alec shouts, his tolerance shot. "I'm _not_ a damn _shapeshifter_!"

Dean holds back on amusement of all things, and instead looks to Sam. "He's, uh…they call 'em transgenics," he says, realizing that because they'd spent so much time and energy finding Sam, they hadn't thought much about figuring out the link between him and Alec. He makes a mental note to get on that. With Sam around, maybe it'd go faster.

Alec really doesn't fancy explaining everything about himself again, but he discovers he doesn't have to. Sam's face turning to comprehension, he glances between the two doubles. "_You're_ a transgenic?" he asks. "Aren't you guys supposed to be in Washington?"

About to go into another outburst, Alec sputters to a stop as Dean speaks up for him. "He's all right, Sammy," he says placidly. "He's a damn pain in the ass, but he's one of the good guys. If you heard some of what they went through, Sam…"

Alec purses his lips, not wanting Dean to elaborate to someone Alec's still shaky on trusting, but thankfully he doesn't. Just leaves it to the imagination, which, in Alec's case, is more likely better than the actual truth. Of course, apparently just because Sam had been dead inside his own body, it hadn't _completely_ squelched his thirst for knowing everything.

"So…why does _he_ look like _you_?" Sam inquires, far from getting over the zero difference between Dean from twenty-one years ago and the Dean dopplegänger in front of him now.

"I have a name," says Alec waspishly. "It's Alec, thanks very much."

Sam would rather distance the man who'd just identified himself from the Dean he knew when he was seventeen, but he's quickly coming to surrender that, thus far, their mannerisms are also in that zero difference category. Sending a concerned eye over to Ruby, who's in a position eerily similar to her last body upon demise, Sam regards Alec with an identical mood as Alec does him.

"Okay, _Alec_," Sam emphasizes, forcing himself to try and see past the countenance and tell himself it's not Dean, "care to explain the resemblance thing you've got with my brother?"

"Sam, calm down," Dean interjects again, feeling fairly unexpected rushes to defend Alec, even if from _Sam_. "We haven't figured that out yet. We…wanted to find you first."

Alec literally bites his tongue to prevent from lashing out. He's afraid that if he were to, he'd say something that would make Dean look at him like Alec never wants to be looked at again. He's afraid that any wrong move now, and Dean would dump him for Sam in an instant, even ignoring Dean's various interruptions of Sam's antagonism.

Just because Alec had spent a week with Dean wouldn't, he knows, replace twenty-five years of love and family and blood that Dean shares with Sam. Alec wonders what Max would say if he returned to Terminal City sans Dean, and had to explain to her that Dean'd dropped him like an old hat to go and spend his time with Sam instead. He doesn't know if he could handle her pity and _I-told-you-so_ looks.

"I don't suppose you're one of those assholes who thinks we're the lowest scum of the earth and deserve to be ripped apart by mobsters," says Alec flatly, his eyes guarded and level.

Whether Sam senses he's possibly in danger of Alec's wrath, or whether he simply doesn't care one way or the other, he answers with a shrug, "Hadn't crossed my mind. I'm used to people being assuming bastards."

Alec thinks Sam's trying to form an allusion to his and Dean's work being severely underappreciated and misunderstood, but Alec can't quite accept it. The populace may have wanted the brothers behind bars at Supermax, but that doesn't equate to the populace wanting to _slaughter_, _crucify_, _burn_ Alec and his brethren on crude pyres in the from of an X. It isn't like Sam and Dean were exactly forced to flee into a toxic waste dump with a twenty-four/seven military guard around them.

"Yeah, well," Alec hedges, "you did try to maim me. I'll withhold judgment if you don't mind."

Dean raises an eyebrow at Alec, the gesture explicitly accusing him of being a hypocrite. And fine, maybe he is (though, to be fair, Dean also committed a Sam to him) but something about this whole situation seems off to him, and he'd rather be on his guard than be caught unawares. That nonchalance has bitten him in the ass before—getting too cocky after a cage fight and so being captured by a genocidal sociopath, anyone?—and he'd really rather not have it happen again.

"Anyway," Alec continues, undeterred for the most part, "uh…if that chick over there is some death-worthy demon…why in the world is she still fuckin' _alive_?"

For a second, Dean looks like he wants to slam Alec against the wall in anger, but, in spite of his distraction of actually believing that somehow Dean's back from Hell, and that Ruby's currently unconscious, he'd really like that particular mystery solved. Of course, it has to be just some ploy of Sam's, some trick of nicety so he can use Ruby, the drinking her blood just a ruse, but…

Everything is made worse when Sam shifts his weight, the appearance a poster for guilty discomfort. "Dean.."

"You're not _working_ with her," Dean states despairingly.

Trained to decode expressions and essentially be his own personal polygraph, Alec can see lies written all over Sam's face, but for the time being, he'll hold his words. It's something Dean needs to decipher for himself.

"It's not what you think," Sam defends solidly.

"_Fuck_, Sam, please tell me you're just exploiting her," Dean pleads, a desperation that Alec hasn't seen since he realized Dean wanted to find Sam in part because Sam could understand Dean's Hell. "You have to know she's the epitome of evil."

"She was helping me find Lilith, thinking of ways to get you out," Sam defends. At Dean's disbelief, he exclaims, "You don't know what it was like! Ruby was the only one who could help me with all of this!"

"She's a _demon_, Sam! You're choosing her over me? I _know_ she's evil! I was _there_!"

"You trusted her, too, you know."

Dean gives himself a second to close his eyes and breathe deeply. "I never fucking trusted her," he says coldly. And he hadn't—acknowledged her occasional helpfulness, sure, but trust? Hardly. "I never thought you'd be stupid enough to fall for her lies, Sam. Especially after everything she did."

Alec wonders how everything had suddenly gotten so out of hand. It's like riding a roller coaster no matter how many Winchesters are in the room. It'd been bad enough with Dean, he thinks, but with Sam here, too? Might as well be watching Russian Roulette ping pong, his eyes darting between the two, trying to see Sam's side, yet entirely unable to. Even if he doesn't know all the particulars, he can't imagine how someone could actually believe a _demon's_ manipulations, _drink their blood_. Alec knows he wouldn't, and he wonders how the hell _Sam_, a demon _hunter_ could.

"You were in Hell, Dean," Sam chokes, the words getting caught in his throat. "You don't know how it was for me, losing you like that…I thought _I_ was going to die, Dean. I almost did."

"So, what," Dean retorts, in full acknowledgement that Sam probably was close to suicide, but unable to see past him being fuck buddies with Ruby, "you thought you'd honor my memory by inducting that bitch in place of me? That goes against _everything_ we fought for, Sam! Everything I tried to protect you from!"

Sam's jaw clenches, his back stiff as he looks down at Dean. "Protect me?" he parrots, eyes showing a remembrance that everyone except Alec is all too aware of. "That didn't work out so well, did it?"

Dean flinches like Sam had slapped him, staring at him, not able to believe the words coming out of his brother's mouth. "You didn't use to need demonic help," Dean remarks. "What happened to that Sam?"

"He died with you," Sam answers, his sallow face reflecting the misery of the sentence. "Ruby was willing to accept that, and she helped me, Dean. She changed."

"Demons don't _change_, Sam," Dean says, disappointment written everywhere. "When they lost their humanity, they lost any ability to actually care. They manipulate, they lie, they twist everything until it sounds right. But they don't ever change. I know that better than anyone."

The legitimacy behind it is staggering, and Alec knows he's not the only one who hears it. "Dean…I didn't…"

"Forget it, Sammy," Dean cuts off, fatigued. "Just leave her behind, and let's go. We can figure all this shit out later, but just…just come with us, Sam, please."

In Alec's opinion, it's a good enough offer. Not one he would've chosen—had he his way, he'd give Sam a good, old-fashioned beat down—but a compromising offer nonetheless. He can already seen Dean reverting into real big brother mode, his voice holding an undertone of command, and both he and Dean expect to see Sam grumble but ultimately surrender to what Dean'd said.

But Sam doesn't.

"Dean, listen…"

"_Sam_," Dean barks, and this time Sam's name isn't so much held with reverence, but rather order. Alec doesn't like being told what to do, and Dean had never taken that tone with him before, _never_, but had he…well, Alec would've done whatever Dean dictated. Simply because Dean had said it. "What the fuck are you doing? _Leave her_."

Sam looks down at Ruby's body, and Alec sees it—again—before Dean: Sam's been doing way more than simply gallivanting about with the demon. Alec's seen that kind of look multiple times; Sam's more attached to Ruby than any of them had picked up on. The demon blood was just the start.

"You don't understand," Sam begs, in his lack of words trying to make Dean do just that.

"I understand," Dean says, breath caught in his chest. "I come back from Hell, come back from things worse than even _your_ nightmares could manufacture, and the first thing I knew I had to do was find my little brother. I finally do that, and you'd rather stick with that lowlife than me. So yeah, Sam, I understand perfectly."

"Looks like you've got your own little replacement for me, too, Dean!" Sam objects, gesturing wildly at Alec.

Alec opens his mouth to dispute this with words not suitable for younger audiences, when Dean surprises him again. In fact, if Alec saw right, Dean stepped the tiniest bit closer, as if with the intent to stand between him and Sam. He doesn't completely, but Alec marvels at the effort.

"Don't compare _Alec_ to _Ruby_," Dean spits, doing some marveling of his own at how Sam could even conceive a similarity. "He left his own goddamn city, his own goddamn family, the only place he'd known some kind of brotherhood, to come with me to find you, Sam. Why? Hell if I know, but what I do know is that he's been a damn good guy this last week, when he didn't have to. And the best part is, he never took over some innocent person's body or was reborn into hellfire."

Staring openly at Dean, Alec can't believe what he'd just heard. He wouldn't go so far as to say Dean'd chosen him over Sam, but…the way the sentences sounded to Alec make it as if he might as well have. With good reason, as Alec comes to think of it, given that never in his life had similar sentiments been said about him.

Not from Joshua, not from Mole, especially not from Max…he pointedly ignores whatever it may mean that he gains more solace in the ones coming from his kind-of-clone than any other person. (He also pointedly ignores that his only opponent in that argument is a demon Dean has massive issues with.)

"Then why'd you even want to get me?" Sam asks. "If Alec's so perfect."

"'Cause I missed my goddamn little brother!" Dean shouts, pressing his lips together, as if in endeavor to not cry. "'Cause I had faith in you for two thousand years, that you'd get me out, and when I finally busted free, I needed to see my brother. _Please_, Sammy," he continues, but softer this time, "come back with me. We—We can be a family again. Try to be a family again."

Alec's out of his element with all this; not simply because he's meeting Sam Winchester, but because he's never really seen big brother Dean before. Dean had shown somewhat fraternal tendencies over Alec, but he'd never really had that familial, bound-by-more-than-blood, die-for-you feeling from him. Seeing Dean so caring and pleading is just…weird.

"A family," Sam repeats, and Alec realizes that Sam's posture has never changed from intense rigidity. "How were we _ever_ a family, Dean? We were dysfunctional beyond belief."

"We…were never the Bradys, but I thought we were doing okay."

"We were so far from 'okay,' Dean," Sam says caustically, folding his arms over his chest. "It wasn't working. At all."

"So," Dean says, exhaling slowly, "I guess all it took for you to tell me you hated me was for me to die and go to Hell."

"Dean, I didn't—"

"You know what? Never mind, Sam," says Dean with an edge in his voice that Alec wishes weren't there, no matter his skepticism toward Sam. "I'll go and leave you alone if that's what you really want. Tell Ruby a good scotch'll wake her right up. Oh, maybe a demon blood chaser for you, too."

"Dean…" It's Alec's voice this time, glancing first at Sam—who is in shock at Dean's last remark—then at Dean's hard but pained face. He's not Sam's biggest fan, but selfishly, Alec _had_ left T.C. and traveled thousands of miles to find the damn guy; the least Dean can do is hang around for a while. Unless Sam goes all Voorhees on the joint. Then Alec may have to give Sam a stern talking-to. "Maybe you should think about this…"

Alec may as well not have spoken at all for all the attention Dean pays to him. As if expecting Alec to follow, Dean gives Sam one last look fraught with hundreds of emotions, and then, his body turning so heavily it's like there were a ropes holding him back, he strides toward the door, accidentally-on-purpose stepping on Ruby's body along the way.

"Dean!" Sam yells, finally finding his voice. Right as Dean gets to the door, it slams shut, rattling on the old hinges. Alec's eyes widen—unless the wind had suddenly reached gale-force, the door had closed on its own. He'd been ready to believe in demons and other supernatural fuglies, but invisible forces? That's a whole 'nother can of worms.

He looks over to Sam, whose hand is outstretched, and he realizes that it hadn't been Ruby or something that Alec had half hoped had been the case, but Sam. Evidently, telekinesis was a small nitpick Dean had failed to mention about his brother.

Yet, the way Dean looks as he turns around quells Alec's annoyance at him, for Dean's as dumbfounded, if not more so, than Alec is. More than that, he's…scared? It's a beyond odd thing to recognize, because Alec's never seen Dean scared. Aside from when he'd gone into brief spates of psychosis back in Seattle, but those were memories of Hell, those were different. Dean's looking at Sam like he doesn't know him, worse than he had in the forest, like, Alec dares to think, he's one of the evil things they used to hunt.

"Sammy, what…?" Dean asks in fear. "What are you…?"

To his credit, Sam does look a little shaken (but not enough for the action to be completely foreign to him, which freaks Alec out even more). "It's not what you think," Sam says by way of excuse.

"Seems to be your mantra," Dean comments, breaths carefully calculated. Then, simultaneously with Alec, he recalls an identical movement when they'd first seen Sam. "How long has this been going on?"

"It's always been in me," replies Sam. "This…power."

"Ruby's told you that drinking her blood would…reinforce this or some shit, didn't she? However the hell'd you think that was _right_?"

Alec's been relatively okay with the strange telepathy Sam and Dean seem to have had up to this point, but now it's just getting ridiculous. He knows a lot of it has to do with them having a history and everything that Alec wasn't privy to, but he's more than pissed about not being in the loop. Maybe because he's usually the center of it back "home," but this exclusion thing sucks balls.

"For those of us _non_-Winchesters," Alec pipes up angrily, "what the fuck was _that_?"

Sam remains indifferent to Alec, but it's better than outright distaste. Sam and Dean don't look at each other like they had before as though they'd been communicating silently, but now it's disjointed; Sam knowing one thing, Dean hopelessly clawing for a handle on it.

"Long story," grits Sam.

"Fuck no," Alec protests, becoming agitated again. "I can believe a lot—and in the past couple of days, that level's been jacked up creepily high—but that shit right there? Deserves a hell of a lot more than just 'long story.'"

"Look, kid—"

"A demon infected Sam with blood when he was a baby," Dean interrupts, his gaze never moving from Sam.

Dean hadn't been lying when he told Sam that Alec was a pain in the ass, but…he won't downplay the guy's help or presence ever since Dean had woken up in that warehouse. Sure, they'd been hostile early on, but Alec _had_ gotten Dean out of that bunker, and he _had_ gone with him to find Sam on a whim. It took cajones, and Dean owes him for that.

"This demon blood crap isn't _new_?" Alec says incredulously. "Next you'll tell me Dean has _angel_ blood."

"Don't be stupid, there's no such thing as angels," Dean immediately snaps. Then he glances Sam up and down, sneering. "But the _drinking_ demon blood is something new."

Alec gives Dean then Sam a withering glare. "So you're full on Sith now," he proposes. "Awesome."

"What happened to staying on the side of normal?" Dean asks his brother. "Not only are you BFFs with a demon, but she's teaching you to use your demonic powers. What _happened_ to you, Sammy? When I said 'Remember everything I taught you,' I meant it. What happened to…to you staying _human_?"

"Don't say that," Sam whispers thickly. "Don't' say that. I—I _am_ human. I'm just…I was just trying to get by, Dean. Without you."

"Well, the smarter brother's back in town," Dean replies. And although it pains him to the core to just gloss over everything (however temporarily), he adds, "Come on, Sam. You're getting the ass-reaming of the century later, but let's just go. Now."

"Go _where_?" Sam retorts. "What, to Seattle with _Alec's_ buddies?"

"Hey!"

"We've lived in shitty places before, but I'm not going to a toxic waste dump, with people that are just waiting to kill any human, not to mention are on the government's kill list."

"It's a fuck load better than sticking with Ruby!"

"Dean, I'm not going with you," Sam says stiltedly.

Alec feels like the hurt tension in the air could shatter at any moment, and so Alec clears his throat anxiously. "Okay, I know Terminal City's not exactly the Hilton, but I don't think anyone would give a damn if you guys came. Maybe give you shit for being Ordinaries, but at least Sam isn't a pansy ass and doesn't have any doubles there."

By which Alec means there's a slim possibility that T.C.'s residents _wouldn't_ shut the doors and leave Sam (maybe Dean—or, hell, him—as well) outside. It wouldn't even be that they're Ordinaries, either, Alec presumes. Rather, they're not interested in rocking the boat any more than it already is, and bringing Sam into the fray would only serve that purpose. If the government caught sight of Sam _and_ Dean Winchester integrating into the transgenics' ranks…

Shit hitting the fan wouldn't begin to cover it.

Regardless of the fact that the majority of the soldiers and officials and police and whomever wouldn't recall who Sam and Dean are, it by no means vanishes the threat. Alec doesn't know how precisely the government would react to the two supposed mass murderers, but he has no doubts it would put a serious gash in the transgenics' lives. Alec can see the news now:

**TRANSGENICS IN LEAGUE WITH PRESUMED DEAD SERIAL KILLERS**

**SAM AND DEAN WINCHESTER**

The public would have no idea who the brothers are, or remember their allegations, but that wouldn't prevent them from pretending they do. Wouldn't prevent them from adding the Winchesters to their witch-hunt. And while Alec's allegiance will always lean toward his kind, he by no stretch of the imagination wishes harm on Dean. (Sam's a different story at this point, but since Dean won't let go of him without a fight, Alec includes him by reluctant extension.)

"Sammy, _please_," Dean begs again, and Alec knows he's not imagining the watery sheen to Dean's eyes. "After all we've been through, after I came back from _Hell_…just…please. Please."

Sam's gaze shifts, not as hard anymore, and Alec knows he's _this close_ to coming around. But then, add Alec's never-good luck to Sam and Dean's, and catastrophe is inevitable.

"Sorry, Deano, can't let that happen," comes Ruby's voice from the corner of the room.

Three heads whip towards her, all of them having been too involved in the conversation to notice that Ruby had—thanks to her being a demon, no doubt—come out of her Alec-induced unconsciousness.

Before even Alec can figure out what her intentions are, she flings her hand out, and both Alec and Dean get tossed backward, hitting the wall with enough force to cause some plaster to fall from the ceiling.

"Sammy here's mine, and I can't let a maggot like you screw that up."

Alec watches her smirk, and for quite possibly the first time in his life, he wishes Max would bust through the door and save his ass. He'd _welcome_ her tirade. Unfortunately, she's more than halfway across the country and, though it's not known to Alec, wrapped up in a demon problem of her own.

Because, apparently, being a transgenic in a transgenics-must-die country isn't enough.


	33. Chapter XXXII: Each Our Own Devil

A/N: Same stuff applies as in the first chapter. Oh, and unfortunately I neither own _Supernatural_ nor _Dark Angel_. Just this.

A/N part two: Specific episodes of _Supernatural_ mentioned are: "Shadow," "Born Under a Bad Sign," and "All Hell Breaks Loose, Parts I and II." Specific episodes of _Dark Angel_ mentioned are: "The Berrisford Agenda."

A/N part three: Note to self: Write chapters _before_ Mom decides that since I'm back from college, I therefore am required to do her work.

A/N part four: Also, um…I'm prepared for some backlash from a certain event in this chapter, so if you feel so inclined, don't hold back…

* * *

**Of Desire and the Status Quo**

_**Chapter XXXII: Each Our Own Devil

* * *

**_

"Maybe he's out of cell range," says Max deceptively flippantly.

Meg narrows her eyes, far from amused. She'd made the woman try Alec multiple times, and so far no such luck. It just went to the generic voicemail, and, from what Meg knows of the Winchesters—or, as the case may be, a clone of a Winchester—she's got no reason to trust that Max is telling the truth. She doesn't exactly think highly of the transgenic leader, but she's at least indirectly in league with Dean. Whatever other demons may have said—do say—about Dean Winchester's intelligence (lack thereof, rather), Meg knows it's not true.

Dean may _still_ be a thorn in her side, but he's never been _stupid_. And that is often what caused her fellow hell spawn to get sent back Down There. They didn't underestimate Sam's intelligence, but Dean's they often did, and boy was _that_ always their fatal mistake.

But no sir, not she. She may have early on presumed Dean the dumb-as-rocks older brother, but she'd quickly learned her lesson. Say, after a certain few of her daeva friends dragged her off a twenty-story building. That, coupled with being sent to Hell soon after (evidently it wasn't appreciated that she "allowed" herself to be expelled from Sam's body) tended to make the adage "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" more than true.

And, okay, maybe she hadn't quite counted on Dean ensnaring the transgenic co-leader to go cross country to find Sam, and maybe she hadn't quite anticipated Max to be so steadfast, but her life has in the past many times depended on working through such snags, and so this is really nothing to worry about.

"While we're waiting for Alec to pick up—or not—his phone," Max says blandly, before turning her voice to ice, "when…I mean, how…why Kalinda? What good is she to you?"

Meg smiles. "You really have no idea, do you?" she snickers. "This is more than me just wanting to joyride some freak show in the middle of a toxic dump. While you were floundering over Dean, and Dean was fighting his own head, I was ensuring my survival. With some collateral along the way, naturally. You humans are so _stupid_."

It takes Max a second, but then she gets it. "You have some agreement worked out with the military or…" Meg's expectant expression changes her answer, unwillingly. "Or…or White."

Meg claps her hand against the gun mockingly. "Lookie there, we finally have a smart one on our hands," she sneers.

Max shuts her eyes, like the darker her vision gets, the less of a tailspin her world will go.

"You know, much as I like overtaking normal humans, it's the corrupt ones I love exploiting the most. They're so overconfident and blind, it's _beautiful_." Meg sits on the corner of Max's desk, nonverbally acknowledging the fact that, as powerful as she is (though, granted, not as she once was), she can't manufacture a cell signal, nor teleport unruly Winchesters. "By the way, you should update your security. It was pathetically easy to wander outside…"

_What was also pathetically easy to do was find the transgenics' primary nemesis; Ames White, as Kalinda's inadvertent thoughts (for she had been in the room when Max, Alec, and Dix discovered White's bunker) had so kindly informed Meg. She had thankfully kept her ability to transport herself, and in less than three seconds, she materializes into the center of a group of Familiars, smiling a grin that doesn't belong on Kalinda's face._

"_Hey, boys," she says, enjoying the fact that the enhanced soldiers are too stunned by both Meg's supernatural appearance and, although they don't know she's a demon, sense that she's…something else._

"_Who are you?" asks a blond-haired man who looks as if he could give Mr. Universe a run for his money._

"_Someone who has better things to do than pretend to be intimidated by you, small fry," Meg sneers, crossing her arms. "Now, tell me where Ames White is. I need to speak with him."_

"_No one sees him without explaining themselves," says Blond, taking a step towards her. He gives Meg a small nod, and there's something that feels like a gust of wind, which she guesses was meant to be some kind of telekinesis. But, despite their impressive muscles and specialized breeding, they don't even register on Meg's threat meter. She stands there, raising an eyebrow at his attempt._

_He looks her up and down, trying and failing to keep his shock down. "Who are you?" he repeats._

"_Look," Meg says impatiently, "either you tell me where White is, or I slaughter all of you and find him myself. Your choice."_

_Blond exchanges a look with a few of his cohorts, and then exhales in what is more of a growl. "Follow me," he says, walking in the direction of a hallway._

_Meg smirks at the group of Familiars, and then walks down the hallway behind Blond. It isn't far to a large room that contains multiple computers and two men huddled over what looks like a map or blueprints. Not that Meg cares much. She really only needs White for manipulative purposes._

_Blond hesitates before the door, glancing from White to Meg, weighing who he fears more. Meg levels her eyes and starts to summon power from within her, but it isn't needed; Blond decides the demon is the one he's most afraid of, and so knocks on the door before opening it._

"_And we can use—" White stops whatever he was going to say at the intrusion. "What do you think you're doing?" he seethes at Blond. "This is a private conference."_

"_Forgive me, sir, but there's someone who'd like to speak to you," says Blond, gesturing to Meg._

_White looks at her disdainfully, and then looks back at Blond. "Who is she?" he asks._

"_I don't—"_

"_Someone it'd be wise to hear out," Meg interrupts. White turns back to her, and she promptly blinks, her irises changing from hazel to pitch black. "There's some matters I'd like to discuss."_

_White doesn't show alarm, merely cautious intrigue, and turns to the man beside him. "Otto, escort yourself and this man out of here. It appears I have a more pressing meeting."_

_Meg grins, and as Otto and Blond leave the room, takes a seat next to one of the computers. "Good decision."_

_White folds his arms over his chest, his tailored suit as immaculate as ever. "You're a transgenic, I know that much," he says, "but something else, too. Care to elaborate?"_

"_I'm a demon," Meg says candidly. She's not here to play games. "I'm possessing some…_transgenic_…from what they call Terminal City. No one there knows, yet. As I understand it, you want the transgenics' heads on plates, specifically their leaders', am I right?"_

"_A demon," White repeats skeptically. He can believe a lot—Familiars (let alone he himself being one) is one such element—but…demons? Possession? Surely this transgenic in front of him was just…concocted differently, to where she could change her eye color. And somehow convince his minions to let her see him._

"_Oh, spare me the doubt speech," Meg says, rolling her eyes. "You got two choices here, hotshot: One, accept my offer and get your two archenemies hand-delivered to you; or two, try and kill me, and unmistakably get killed in the process. Your decision."_

_Well. There's skepticism, and then there's "What the hell, what could it hurt?" White goes with the first option Meg suggests. Besides, if she tries to double-cross him, it isn't like he's ill-prepared._

"_I'm listening," White says, keeping his face calm._

_Meg smiles._

Max stares in horror at the demon imprisoning the young X6, her clenched hands endangering her cell phone's life. "What…what are you going to do?" she asks in dread.

"Nothing yet," answers Meg. "After all, I still don't have the whole set. Your better half has to arrive first. Then…then you'll find out."

Max swallows, looking down at her phone again. She prays—to no one in particular—that Alec's years and years of espionage and infiltration prowess will bring them all through this mess. Oh, he'll get a hell of a talking-to when Meg and White are toast, but for now she'll settle for a rescue.

The problem being that, honestly, she has no idea if Alec's any safer than she is.

* * *

Which, it turns out, he isn't.

"Ruby!" Sam exclaims, looking from Dean and Alec choking on the wall to Ruby, her undiluted, evil expression looking all too amiss on her soft face. "What are you doing?"

Without moving her hand from its outstretched position, she turns her eyes to Sam. "Come on, Sam, it isn't like I'm doing anything you haven't done."

Sam balks for a second, before trying to push Ruby's hand down. Unfortunately, even Sam's strength is unable to overcome hers. "I'd never try and kill my brother!" Sam yells, looking at Dean again.

"He's supposed to be dead anyway," Ruby says, reveling in the gasping noises she's causing. Alec's faring somewhat better than Dean, having suffered through innumerable tests to see how long he could hold his breath, but even his eyes have a burst capillary or two. "I'm just setting everything right again."

"I'm not losing him again, Ruby!" Sam says.

Ruby sends a smirk in Sam's direction. "Sorry," she says. "But I didn't get the pleasure to kill your brother last time around; I can't pass this one up. And hey—two for the price of one."

"S-Sam…"

Sam had been drinking Ruby's blood for thirteen years, he'd turned his back on everyone but Ruby—only sparing a day to bury Bobby upon hearing of his death—hell, he'd _fucked_ Ruby, but here Dean is, somehow flesh and blood _alive_, and even if he does have some kind of freakish transgenic clone in tow, even if Sam does feel like he's dead inside, even if Sam had put his trust in Ruby, he isn't going to let her kill his big brother.

He isn't.

Summoning up all the rage, grief, and supernatural blood inside him, Sam extends his own hand towards Ruby and, with a brief expression of surprise, Ruby is flung backward, hitting the opposite wall with a crack, making an imprint in the plaster before sliding down to meet the carpet.

Simultaneously, there's two more thuds as Dean and Alec are released from Ruby's power, accompanied by twin gasps of air, the two desperately trying to reoxygenate their lungs.

Sam scrambles over and puts his hands on Dean's shoulders, breathing heavily himself. "Dean!" he exclaims. "Are you all right?"

"Sammy," Dean whispers, giving his brother a weak smile.

"I'm sorry, Dean," Sam fumbles, his thirty-eight-year-old face suddenly losing a decade, suddenly looking like the face Dean remembers. "I'm so sorry."

"We'll fix it, Sammy," Dean says. "I'll fix it."

As if just realizing that Dean's not the only one recovering from strangulation, Sam moves to Alec, hesitating for a second before touching Alec's arm. "Are…are you okay?"

Alec looks up, astounded. "I'm peachy," he snarks, shrugging off Sam's hand. "Leave me alone."

Sam does, primarily for the fact that Alec is doing precisely the same, gruff I'm-indestructible façade that Dean always would, and that he knows no matter what he says, it would only result in more sarcasm and brusqueness.

So instead, Sam goes back over to Dean. He starts to speak (though, admittedly, doesn't know at all what he'd say), but then notices something. Dean's shirt is dark, and Sam knows the sight of bloodstains too well.

"What happened to your shoulder?" he asks.

Dean peers as best he can at his wound and sighs. "Ah, damn," he mutters. "That bitch throwing me against the wall started it bleeding again. Just perfect."

"Are you kidding me?" Alec pipes up indignantly. "I fucking _drugged_ you just to get that stupid thing repaired, and now you go and ruin it again? You live to make my life difficult."

Sam and Dean exchange a long-suffering glance, the familiarity of it makes Dean's chest ache, and Alec's ache for an entirely different reason. "As glad as I am for this lovely reunion," Alec gripes through his seeing them act so like _brothers_, "can we get the hell out of here please?"

Dean smiles and stands up, rubbing at his neck briefly. "Best words I've heard come out of your mouth, kid," he remarks, stepping towards the door.

Alec chooses not to comment, just leads the way, Sam and Dean following, but then his hyper-sensitive ears pick up something. He turns, but it's too late.

Ruby's there, with the same knife that he himself had sent sprawling into her sternum. She's bleeding profusely from her head, but her grip on the knife is sound, and the squelching noise of it digging into Sam's back to the hilt is devastatingly real.

"SAM!" Alec yells helplessly.

It had all happened so fast that Dean'd barely turned by the time Ruby yanks the knife out and Sam falls. Struck with the identical image of Sam back in Cold Oak, South Dakota, Dean relives the horror to the _n_th degree, hurrying over and holding Sam's face in his hands.

Alec, for his part, feels anger instead of sadness rise up, and rushes over to Ruby's relishing form. It takes a split second, and he doesn't think twice as he snaps her neck, the motion familiar, and yet alien.

Unfortunately, Alec's still not versed with demonology, and although Ruby groans, she merely snaps her head back, and looks at Alec with revulsion. His eyes widen, and he uses the only weapon he has left. Blurring, he pounces on Ruby, tackling her to the floor and sticking a knee in her spine, wrenching her arms behind her.

"What do I do?" he begs to either Sam or Dean.

Dean's horror-stricken, staring at his brother, but Sam, even though there's blood dripping from his mouth, and his eyes are glassy, turns his head over to Alec. "N-N-Nightstand…" he exhales, so quietly Alec barely catches it.

Presuming there's a gun or something in there, Alec awkwardly but quickly maneuvers Ruby over and, with a stranglehold on her, uses his other hand to rifle through the nightstand drawer. There's only one thing in there, a thick, leather-bound book, and Alec glances over to Sam again, fearing that the wound had addled his brain.

"End," Sam moans out, squeezing his eyes shut. "R-Read it…"

Alec humors him and flips to the end, where there's a paragraph full of Latin. "I—I don't know what this says," he laments. He's fluent in French, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, and German, and knows enough to get around in four other languages, but Latin is not one of them.

It's Dean this time who pleads, "Alec." There's wetness to his cheeks, but the desperation is there, desperation for Alec to finish…something. Alec has no idea.

Sam's dying, Dean's mind is on one track, Alec's currently holding a squirming demon in his hand, and to top it all off he's got the former two people asking him to read something, of which he has no idea the purpose, and his life is so fucked up now that he doesn't know which way is up anymore. But the looks on Sam and Dean's faces, and the evil emanating from Ruby is enough to make up Alec's mind.

He forces Ruby to the floor again, casts a quick glance to Sam and Dean, Sam's blood slowly leaking into the hardwood, Dean's breaths coming in choking sobs as his brother's life drains away, and then looks at the book in his hands. The words are clunky at first, but then come with a shocking degree of ease, of hasty but accurate precision, as if he'd been speaking it for, well, as long as Sam and Dean had.

"_Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica, in nomini et virtute Domini Nostri Jesu Christi, eradicare et effugare a Dei Ecclesia, ab animabus ad imaginem Dei conditis ac pretioso divini Agni sanguine redemptis_."

There's an awful screech, and then, to Alec's saucer-wide eyes, a billow of black smoke comes out of Ruby's—or, rather, her host's—mouth, slinking through and scorching the floorboards, and then leaving the room in eerie silence, broken only by Sam's gurgles and Dean's sobs.

Alec silently places the book on the nightstand and turns over Ruby's host, the girl unarguably dead, but somehow peaceful. He shuts her open eyes, and then walks over to Dean, kneeling next to Sam's barely-alive form.

He looks at Sam, tries to withhold the unknown and sudden surge of anguish. "I did whatever that was you asked," he says unnecessarily. If Sam had the strength to nod, he would.

"I-I'm sorry, D-D-Dean," Sam forces out, the effort causing more blood to spill from his mouth.

"Shh," Dean struggles. "Sammy, be quiet. We're gonna get you help. We're gonna patch you up." He looks up at Alec, eyes wet. "_Do something_. Please."

Alec treads water, not ashamed to say he's freaking the fuck out. He'd just exorcised—killed?—a _demon_, a demon who'd just fatally stabbed Sam, and Dean, the man who Alec hadn't hesitated to say was emotionally broken beyond all repair. He'd been renowned in his unit for being able to keep a level head in the most SNAFU of situations, but this is _way_ beyond his rationality.

"Dean, I—" he stumbles out, for one of the very few times in his life unsure of what to say. "Dean, I don't…"

"DO SOMETHING, FOR FUCK'S SAKE!" Dean cries, somehow managing an expression of threat and desolation at the same time. "Please, Alec. He's m'brother."

"D-Dean," comes Sam's voice thickly, his speech marred by blood. "Dean, it's too late. You and I both know that."

"Sammy, no."

"I really fucked everything up," says Sam, eyes glassy as he looks up at his big brother, still amazed that Dean's _alive_. "You t-told me she was…and then I…I'm so sorry, Dean, I am."

Dean swallows heavily. "I know you are, Sammy," he replies, gripping onto Sam's shoulders with white knuckles. "Just be quiet, I'll get you out of here, we'll fix you up, good as new."

Alec sees Sam's injury, knows it's only a matter of time, sees Sam's eyes that know the same, sees Dean's that are ensconced in denial, and, despite the obviously _wrong_ choices Sam made, Alec admires him in this moment. Feels pangs of regret that he'd never get to know the man.

"H-Here," says Sam then, shakily reaching up to a string around his neck, grimacing in agony as he takes it off. He hands it to Dean, with a bloody smile, and as Dean looks down, his mouth drops open.

"Sammy, is this…?"

Sam smiles again. "She's—She's around back."

Alec frowns, edges a few inches closer to see what Dean's holding. Car keys. Car keys and some kind of gold pendant, both of which he surmises have much more value than they appear to, for all the reverence that both brothers show.

Sam's face is a sickly shade of white, his hair plastered to his forehead in sweat, and there's minute shivers overwhelming his body in spurts. But as he stares at Dean, he somehow manages to look all of five years old, like he'd gotten a scrape on the knee and needed his brother to make it better.

"You g-got any tips for s-s-survivin' Downstairs?" Sam asks weakly.

Dean's face is shocked confusion. "You're not goin' there, Sammy," Dean says firmly. "Don't think you are, _don't ever_."

Sam looks hopeful. "You think?" he asks. "After…after everything?"

"Yeah," Dean smiles, dropping a tear. "Yeah, I do."

Sam's eyes close, his words a breathy whisper, "Thanks for…being…my brother, Dean."

Dean tries to say something, anything, but Sam's gone.

And finally, after two millennia in Hell and a week up on hellish Earth, and thousands of miles with his sort-of-clone, Dean breaks. Shatters. Alec _watches_ him break, watches him shatter, watches Dean's already tenuous grip on reality snap. Dean just sits there on the grimy floor, holding his little brother in his arms, grief running unchecked down his cheeks. Alec doesn't know what to do, not remotely, but there's one person he knows who will.

Stepping into the bathroom, he dials the number. "Max, I need your help," he says, before she can even whip out a greeting.

"Alec," Max sighs, a mix of anger and relief. "Where are you?"

"Illinois," he answers. "But listen, I—"

"Can you get back here soon?"

Alec stops mid-sentence, through his panic noting the severe switch of her usual tone of confidence. "Are you okay?" he asks instead. "You sound…weird."

"We've got a situation over here. A, uh, a not good one."

Alec zeroes in on her words in dread. He shuts his eyes, hoping his worst-case scenario isn't true. "Max, if there's a gun to your head, say 'please.'"

She doesn't hesitate—a sign in and of itself—as she replies, "Get back here now…please."

Alec drops his forehead against the cracked tile of the bathroom wall. He needs to deal with Dean, but the mere image of not only Max with a firearm aimed for her brain, but the fact that she's not already finagled herself out of it frankly makes his blood run cold. He's guessing the rest of T.C. is tied up, too, but right now, it's Max he's worried about.

"I'll be there as soon as I can, Maxie," he promises, within his words swearing he'll break every speed limit there is.

"Thanks," she says after a short pause, and as if Alec's concern wasn't already sky high, the sheer, unbridled relief in her voice sets his nerves on edge again. He'd already known that she'd named him Second for a reason, that reason being that she put enough trust in him to watch her back, but until now he hadn't realized she put _that_ much trust in him. He's sure that once all of this shit is over, she won't cop to anything, but he's not inclined to let her down.

He closes the phone, unable to stop part of him from feeling like he'd just signed her death sentence. But it's quickly subdued when he looks back at Sam and Dean, Dean still holding onto his brother so tight, as if by doing so, he can imbue life back into him. It isn't working, and Alec's killed enough people to know that it won't be long before Sam's blood goes cold and then still.

He doesn't, of course, know that Dean has already seen his brother dead for three days before, that Dean would give absolutely anything—as he'd done once—to not see Sam like that again.

Clearing his throat and preparing himself to blur out of the way should Dean become violent, Alec says quietly, "Dean, we…we need to, um…"

Dean glares up at Alec, who takes a step back. The darkness of Dean's eyes, the deadness in them, is worse than Sam's. When Alec'd lost Rachel, he'd thought he was so dead he'd never be back to normal. And he's not, not really, but he's managing. But seeing Dean like this, Alec knows in his gut that Dean really won't ever get back to normal; honestly, he doubts Dean will ever even function beyond the basics. His whole livelihood, his whole drive after returning from Hell, had been to find Sam, and he'd only had a few moments with his brother before he lost him once more.

Alec's never had a brother, but Dean's desolation is palpable. And in that second, Alec wishes he had some backup. Because he has a bad feeling that trying to get Dean to come with him, to leave Sam's body, would be harder than fighting ten Familiars.

Feeling he has no other choice, Alec curses himself and then walks up to Dean. With a strategic blow, he slams his fist into Dean's temple, and, in spite of Dean's grief, he falls into blackness.

Alec then turns to Sam, the puddle of blood underneath him making Alec nearly literally sick to his stomach. Stowing away his emotions into an impenetrable vault, Alec grabs a blanket off the bed and wraps it around Sam's body. He pries the keys from Dean's hand and then picks up Sam. He's heavier than Alec had anticipated, but after a few adjustments, he's more…manageable.

The car is exactly where Sam had said, the black body gleaming in the dying sunlight, resting there in solemn grace. Alec doesn't even have the heart to give the lines due admiration, just unlocks the back door and lays Sam's body gently on the bench seat. He knows Dean would want to give his brother a proper burial, and he plans to let Dean do so, but at the moment, Alec's priorities are on Max. If when Dean wakes up he wants to tell Alec to fuck himself and leave him to bury Sam himself, to leave him the hell alone while Dean disintegrates, well, fine. But Sam's dead, and as cold as it sounds, Alec feels he has to concentrate on the living. He'll hate himself for it later, but there it is.

He returns to Dean and repeats the motions—grabbing the journal as an afterthought—setting Dean in the front, leaning his head against the window. He vacillates for a moment on what to do with Ruby, but then remembers. He silently thanks Sam that he'd kept the trunk stocked, and quickly withdraws lighter fluid, a matchbook, and salt. Taking them and Ruby into the wooded (albeit sparsely) area behind the motel, he puts her on the ground, feeling only a fleeting moment of insecurity before drenching her in salt and gasoline, and then lights a match, dropping it onto her body.

He knows he should wait, should make sure nothing hinky will arise, but between Dean's anguish and Max's peril, he can't.

The flames are still a pulsating red-orange as he puts the key into the ignition of the Impala, the engine turning over with a rumble. An hour ago, Alec would have thought his greatest fear would be if he drove the precious car and Dean found out.

Now, though…now he'd welcome anger. Anything except the soul-scouring emptiness that had embraced Dean's entire being. Anything except the death of Dean's baby brother.


	34. Chapter XXXIII: As He Breaks

A/N: Same stuff applies as in the first chapter. Oh, and unfortunately I neither own _Supernatural_ nor _Dark Angel_.

A/N part two: Specific episodes of _Supernatural_ mentioned are: "On the Head of a Pin." Specific episodes of _Dark Angel_ mentioned are: "Pollo Loco" and "The Berrisford Agenda."

* * *

**Of Desire and the Status Quo**

_**Chapter XXXIII: As He Breaks

* * *

**_

It takes Alec a few minutes to get used to the handling of the Impala, but soon it feels second nature, and it isn't long before he eases onto the freeway towards home. Not Dean's home, he knows that with aching certainty—Dean's home is with Sam; _was_ with Sam—but a base camp nonetheless.

He can only see the road in front of him, the asphalt yellowed in the glare of the headlights, the scenery swathed in blackness. They'd been driving for hours, it seems, but he can't tell anything else. He can't be sure whether they're in Montana or only on the Illinois-Missouri border.

Dean hasn't wakened, which Alec doesn't necessarily find suspicious; after all, when Alec knocks someone out, they tend to stay out. But Dean's face is reflected in the window, and Alec sees his eyes scrunched shut, his muscles in pain as if even in sleep he knows that Alec driving his car is _not right_, and that Sam is…gone.

He tries to think of things to say for when Dean does regain consciousness, but so far is coming up blank. What _can_ he say? "Sorry your bro was stabbed to death by the same demon who turned him Dark Side"? He doesn't know too much of Sam, but he'd seen how much the guy meant to Dean. He'd bet Vegas money that Sam's worth more to Dean than Dean is to himself. Shit, the minute the man had realized he was out of Hell, his brother was the first thing he'd thought of, the first person he'd gone after.

He'd knocked both Max and Cindy unconscious, threw a knife into Alec's flesh, fought with Rade and Mole and everyone in between…all of it just to get to Sam. Sam had been more important than Bobby, than Bobby's death. As far as Alec's seen and heard, Sam had been more important than the entire fucking _world_.

And now Dean's has crumbled in upon itself, imploded while taking his spirit with it. He had been able to deal with Hell, with continuous torture and continuous demons hacking away at him piece by piece. He'd been able to deal with anything that came his way, supernatural or otherwise, all with a smirk and a machete. But Sam dying? It's the one thing Dean _can't_ deal with. Ever.

It isn't Sam's last breaths escaping, or even the tears on Dean's cheeks that told him such. It was the expression Dean had made when Ruby sunk the knife into Sam's back. The utter horror, utter shock, utter _devastation_ that had so cruelly twisted Dean's proportioned features. Alec knows he's never had that amalgam on his own face before, not even after Rachel and Isolation.

He'd thought that was the worst life could dish out, the most terrible feelings a person could endure. But looking at Dean? Watching Dean have it confirmed that not only had Sam holed up with a demon, but had been murdered as well? Alec knows for sure that's rock bottom, that absolute emptiness that few have ever had to suffer.

Alec wouldn't be surprised if Dean never speaks again. And he wouldn't blame him, either.

He grips the steering wheel harder, the dated leather molding under his hands like a child's putty. The road stretches endlessly on ahead of them, a never-ending river of depression and barrenness, no finish line in sight, no finale to Dean's anguish or promise of peace.

Alec suddenly doesn't know if he should actually bring Dean back to Seattle, back to civilization and to Max (let alone the disaster that's awaiting them). He's positive Max would, as soon as they deal with everything else, Mother Hen him, or on the flipside, try to slap him into recovery, but Alec _does_ know that no matter what ventures she undertakes, Dean won't respond. Not in the way she'd like.

The only thing he'd respond to is Sam coming back to life, returning to Dean to be taken care of like the little brother he'd raised since he was four. But Alec has a sickening certainty that Sam won't. That whatever anomaly had sprung Dean topside wouldn't happen to Sam. But then, maybe it's better, Alec reasons, better that Sam's not in his own personal Hell anymore.

Because honestly, Alec can't determine whose was worse. Dean's, with the physical torture day in and day out…or Sam's, with the emotional torture day in and day out. Truly, Alec's amazed Sam had lasted so long without giving in. Thirteen years of not taking his own life just to escape the mental assault of guilt and sorrow, thirteen years of waking up to find the second bed undisturbed, thirteen years of driving without having an annoying brother next to him switching the radio channel without asking, thirteen years of having half of himself wrested away.

Alec's pretty sure he'd rather be in Manticore again than go through what either Sam or Dean had. Which is saying a fucking hell of a lot.

Alec glances over to Dean's still sleeping—no, not so much sleeping as out of commission—form and then to the road, sighing. He considers flipping on the radio, but can't bring himself to do it. He just wants to get back…where, home?

He puts his elbow on the seam between the window and doorframe, resting his head on his fist. The car in unmitigated silence, not even a passing vehicle or hoot of an owl breaking the suffocating interior, Alec drives. Alec drives, but he's not sure they're going anywhere at all.

* * *

Rade sits on the second gurney in her medical bay, staring at the closed doors through whose handles she'd stuck a broken off chair leg, as she'd been doing for the past she-doesn't-know-how-long. She can't hear whatever might be going on outside, and her imagination is running wild with just what little she'd seen. She'd more than once heavily considered going against Max's wishes and attempt to fight off whatever those things were, but the look in Max's eyes… Never so clearly had they said, "If this is the one time you follow an order—even if unspoken—follow it now, Rade. Please."

So she'd stayed. She'd stayed behind her locked and soundproof doors while, for all she knew, her people were being slaughtered. And hell, for all she _knows_, those things could bust through said locked doors any minute and slaughter _her_.

What's worse, while she hadn't been able to hear or see much through the sliver between the doors she'd allowed herself; only enough to hear Kalinda's—no, not Kalinda, something else—demand. That Alec and Dean come back only to, she dreads, meet their respective demises. She'd shut the doors and slid the chair leg to secure them once she saw four transgenics she'd known turn their eyes a soulless black.

She has no idea why the black-eyed bitch wants both men dead, but at this juncture, Rade can't bring herself to give a damn. All that matters now is that they don't get hurt. For all the shit she gives Alec, she does like the dude. Well, likes him enough to not want him dead. And Dean…so help her, she doesn't want him dead either. Which she can rationalize is simply because she'd brought him back to the brink of life and she doesn't want her work to be for naught.

But she does wonder how on God's green (now mostly brown and gray and broken) Earth Alec and Dean are going to save them.

She has a certain level of faith in Alec's abilities, and figures she might as well put stock in Dean's as well—providing, of course, he's in his non-hallucinating mind—owing to the fact that he's nearly an exact replica of Alec, she does. But despite their heightened DNA, he isn't invincible. And those _things_ with the black eyes and the unmistakable promise to kill anyone who so much as move in a way they don't want won't, she knows, be inclined to let Alec or Dean anywhere near them.

She looks around the room in hope of finding some sort of weapon that would harm the black-eyed creatures but not her people, but comes up blank. She's got enough ketamine to bring down an elephant, but no dart guns with which to incapacitate from far away; she's got a pea-shooter of her own, but doubts it'd do anything more than piss them off; the only benefit she has is her feistiness, but, much as it's been "revered" by members of T.C., it doesn't quite come equipped with an M40 sniper rifle.

She's broken out of her gloomy musings by a groan, and snaps her head to her left. She sees Dix's shut eyes tight and a shiver run through him, and immediately gets off her gurney and rushes to him.

"Dix!" she exclaims quietly, putting a hand on his arm and carefully avoiding the horrifying amount of injuries on his body. "How're you feeling?"

He moans again, and then opens one eye, the other swollen shut (and, though she won't tell him so, likely not ever to be usable again). "G-Great…" he exhales, voice scratchy.

She recalls that the last time she gave him any analgesic was a good hour ago, and though it's a little soon, though their supplies aren't unlimited, she pulls some ketamine into a syringe, sticks it in Dix's elbow, and fills his veins with the numbing agent. She thinks his injuries combined with his fast metabolism are enough to warrant an additional dosage, and she's sure he'll appreciate it.

Dix blearily takes in his surroundings, Rade, and then finally the door with the bar through the handles. His thoughts are fuzzy right now, but not so much that he can't tell something's amiss.

"Whassat for?" Dix slurs. She notices he doesn't mention at all the explosion, but decides against commenting.

"It's…" she trails, not wanting to up Dix's blood pressure any higher than it is now. She honestly hadn't expected him to pull through, but he had, and she doesn't want that jeopardized. "It's nothing. There was just a little scuffle going on outside, and I didn't want any of it to come in here while I was working on you. Don't worry about it."

Dix doesn't appear to believe her, but his body's too tired to argue. He takes a deep breath, glad for the painlessness the drug is slowly bringing.

"Dix…" Rade says, not wanting to ask but feeling it's necessary, "did you—I mean, before—what did you find?"

Dix swings his good eye over to her, a brief flash of anguish coming over his face as he remembers the event that put him here in the first place. "I—I don't…" he begins, frowning.

"Forget it," Rade says quickly. She doesn't want to cause any more strain on his body. He's lucky to have a heartbeat, let alone to be talking or trying to remember something that happened right before he got blasted with shrapnel.

"No," Dix says, his voice shaky but determined. He tries to sit up, but quickly realizes that's a very bad idea, and lies down again. "I…I hacked i-into the head FBI ag-agent's files and g-got his notes…I just can't…I can't remember…"

"It's okay, Dix," says Rade, hiding the disappointment she's ashamed for feeling. She should be happy he's simply _alive_, not disappointed that he has minor amnesia.

Dix looks at her with what would be a glare if he had the energy to do so. "G-G-Get Trinity."

Rade stalls. She knows why Dix asked for her—Trinity, formerly X5-685, is one of only three ex-Psy Ops units in T.C., and the only one who isn't irreversibly internally scarred from the job. Theoretically, Trinity could look inside Dix's mind, his memory, and pick out what he'd seen. She'd be the world's best hypnotist.

But part of the appeal of T.C. is that it's a place where transgenic abilities aren't used for exploitative purposes. None of it had been, granted, specifically stated, but especially in the case of the Psy Ops series, it was an unwritten taboo for them to use their powers. At least for anything malignant.

Which is the only reason Rade is even contemplating this. Surely, Trinity would see the inquiry as having something good come out of it, not something problematic? Surely she would want to do anything she could to help?

All it takes is a glance towards the locked doors once more for Rade's mind to be made up. Maybe she won't be able to convince Trinity to mind read, maybe she will. But one thing she knows is that _she's_ going to do everything she can.

Virtually the only plus side in the whole situation, unfortunately, is that Trinity is in one of the apartments of T.C.; Rade hadn't thoroughly studied the crowd of transgenics when the black-eyed creatures took over, but she's sure Trinity hadn't been there. And since there's a single small window in the room—albeit one covered in thick bars—it would prevent her from having to somehow not get killed by walking through Command.

She nods to Dix and pats him gently on the arm before moving to the window. The bars are bolted into the concrete, but then, T.C. wasn't made to hold in transgenics; the bonds would be hard to break, but not impossible. Plus, for all her slight figure suggests, she knows she's damn strong.

It takes half a dozen forceful tugs for the bars to finally come loose, and she's glad Command wasn't able to hear the clang. She gives Dix a last look before hoisting herself up and out the window, pulling the bars back through the hole enough so they appear still intact.

She peers around the alleyway, looking for some sharp object (or dull; she's really not that picky) amongst the debris and grime. Part of the wall of the building adjacent to the medic room is broken, leaving the innards exposed. Rade walks over to it and jiggles loose a long piece of rebar, thinking it'll do. She doesn't intend to run into anyone unsavory, but better safe than sorry.

As it turns out, it was a good decision. She's halfway to Trinity's apartment when a man comes out of nowhere, smiling at her with beetle-black eyes. He starts menacingly stalking towards her, but she's never been one to run from a fight.

Blurring, she stabs the rebar through his chest. She'd anticipated him either not doing anything (a result of his unnaturalness) or dying (a best-case scenario). The reaction that she hadn't once even envisioned was him screeching, copious amounts of smoke issuing from the wound as if physically burning him.

She stands there for a second in surprise, before smiling herself. She yanks out the rebar none too gently, and he falls to the ground in agony, still smoking. She'd kill him both if she thought she could and she had time, but neither option is viable, and so she instead books it even faster to Trinity's place.

The encounter wasn't pleasant, but she did learn something that she has a feeling will be useful: evidently, black-eyed somethings are not too fond of iron.

* * *

He can't pinpoint when his eyes started crossing, but Alec's conscious notices it just now, the road multiplying into two, the headlights into four, and he's not sure where the dotted white lines are, or where the edge of the freeway is. He shakes his head violently, and his vision goes back to normal, but he knows it's only a matter of time before it happens again. Lazily, he regards the car's clock, and is mildly astounded to see that it's four-thirty in the morning: ten hours since they'd left Pontiac.

He hasn't known where they are for a long time, and the old National Park sign they just sped by doesn't do him any good. He looks over at Dean, still passed out, and part of him hopes Dean won't wake for a while yet. At least, not until he figures out what he can do or say.

However, that doesn't mean that Alec won't sleep. Or, at the very least, try to rest. In the past, he'd gone much longer without sleep, food, water, and light, but Alec's also never driven ten hours straight—hell, given that the last time he really slept was all the way back in Wyoming, and the next time he'd tried to rest he got seizures for his efforts, he might as well have been driving for forty-eight straight. Not to mention the added stress of emotional battery, death, and exorcisms.

Mentally regretting it, but knowing he'll probably crash the car if he doesn't, Alec takes the off-ramp to some hamlet named Wall, presuming that since it had a marker-ish thing, it's big enough to house a motel. (At this point, Alec would settle for a gravel turnout.) A restaurant would be pushing it, but, unsurprisingly, food is the last thing on his mind right now.

Dean doesn't stir as Alec pulls up in front of a rundown establishment, getting out of the car quietly and walking to the other side. Alec pulls Dean's arm over his shoulder and, locking the Impala, hefts the dead weight—pardon the pun—toward the motel.

The lie comes naturally, more naturally than when Alec had done missions of his own, though he finds himself jaded. "My—My brother here had a little too much to drink," says Alec, mouth fumbling over the b-word. He's not Dean's brother, he's not, and he feels like he's somehow insulting Sam's memory by saying so. "Mind giving us a room so he can sleep it off?"

The motel manager disinterestedly pushes a ledger toward Alec, who shifts Dean's bulk to scrawl some random name. He slaps down a wad of cash, and the manager hands him a key.

Alec doesn't have the strength to even muster up a thank-you, and simply takes the key, walking down the hall awkwardly and very glad that their room is on the first floor. Getting the door open on the fourth try, he stumbles in and drops Dean on the closest bed, shutting the door behind him.

The room is awful, dreadful, and Alec vows to not take off his shoes for fear of getting tetanus. For the hell of it, he tries the TV, but all he gets is static. The walls are thin, thin enough so that on one side he can hear a couple arguing about anything and everything, and on the other some couple going at it like they're making some hardcore Hefner flick.

He glances at Dean and pushes him farther up on the bed, finding a mostly clean blanket and putting it over him. Alec sighs and, hoping he's tired enough to sleep through the noise and the guilt, shuts off the lights, tosses aside the comforter with disgust, and climbs under the musty sheets. He stares up at the ceiling, part of him wishing he'd never decided to go on this stupid trip in the first place. It'd just fucked everything up royally, and Alec doesn't have any access to workable therapy.

He closes his eyes, praying for some exhaustion respite, and mercifully, he falls into sleep—albeit a restless one—partially awakening every so often, but always going back under again before fully conscious.

In the bed beside him, Dean's body lays still, his mind is anything but.

* * *

When Alec wakes for good, watch reading 8:48 a.m., and looks over to Dean's side of the room, he shoots up, discovering through his bleary haze that the bed is empty. Untangling himself from the sheets and checking the entire motel room, even the closet, but finding no evidence of Dean whatsoever, Alec runs a hand roughly over his face, breathing heavily.

"_Damn it_!" he yells, collapsing down on Dean's bed, shoulders hunched as he looks at the ground.

He'd been so caught up with everything that he hadn't roused, not even as Dean had obviously made a run for it. He'd just guessed that Dean was too depressed to even function, but he'd apparently underestimated the man once more. Then again, Alec tries to console himself, Dean _had_ made a living out of deceiving people and escaping—regardless of how emotionally battered he was—so why would Alec be any different?

_Because you actually thought he cared a little about you and maybe even wanted to stick around._

Alec's never wanted to punch the lights out of anything this much before, _ever_, never mind that it's just an aggravating voice inside his head. Mostly because the voice is right—Alec had grown attached to the guy, and he'd—stupidly, apparently—thought Dean had at least liked him enough not to bolt. But Alec supposes neither of them had anticipated what the blow of Sam dying would have caused.

Still…

"Fuck," Alec whispers to himself, standing up languidly and reconciling himself to the fact that if Dean had gone, there'd be no way he'd catch him. It'd be like catching smoke in a hurricane. His only choice would be to go back to Seattle, stealing a car along the way because Dean would surely have taken the Impala, somehow save Max and all of T.C. on his own, somehow find Dean again, somehow figure out this thing with White, and then somehow _run_ T.C. with Max for God knows how long. He can handle a lot, but right now, he's feeling himself come apart at the seams. Fast.

After a minute, he collects himself well enough to put those thoughts carefully on the edges of his mind, and he throws his jacket on, grabbing the motel key on the way. Feeling it's a fruitless effort but needing to do _something_, he walks hurriedly down the hallway, slams the motel key on the reception counter while ignoring the owner's disgruntlement, and strides through the lobby doors.

Not watching where he's going in favor of looking for a car that would be both inconspicuous to thieve and also not some piece of crap, Alec unintentionally slams into something solid, losing his balance for a moment but not falling.

"Move—" Alec starts in irritation to whomever he'd run into. When he looks up, though, he backpedals. "_Dean_?"

"Alec," Dean says, his voice sounding the most normal Alec's heard in _days_. "You look like you're gonna have a heart attack."

Alec thinks that's not too far out of the question. "Dean!" he exclaims, putting his hands on both of Dean's arms. "Where the hell'd you go?"

"Doesn't matter," Dean says with a shrug. "I mean, this ain't real, anyway. None of it is."

Gazing straight into Dean's eyes, crazily enough praying he'll just see the same vacancy as before, he's actually _disappointed_ to see that they're clear, lucid as can be. Alec had never thought he'd wish for Dean to be depressed, but now…he kind of does. He doesn't understand. Less than a day ago, Dean was—justifiably—the poster child for Xanax. Now he's the poster child for a downright chipper vacuum salesman.

"What are you talking about?" asks Alec, gripping tighter onto Dean's arms, as if to hold in his sanity. Because he's starting to fear it's slipping away, quicker than before. "What do you mean this isn't real? Of course it is!"

"Nope," Dean says offhandedly, shaking his head. "Not real. I've been through this before. You fuckers have put me through this before. Sammy dead, broken, me twisted…it's old news, buddy. Man, for a second there, I really thought I'd been out of this damn place."

Alec begins to speak, before realizing with bone-chilling horror that Dean thinks he's back in Hell. That because he'd seen Sam have the life drained out of him, it was another illusion brought on by demons. He doesn't want to believe Sam is dead—because that was really the sole motivation for him to hold on—so badly that he'd _prefer_ being in the Pit once more.

But Alec's not gone this far, not dealt with so much with Dean to lose him now. More than that, he…he _can't_. Not like this. "Fuck, Dean, snap out of it!" he yells, not caring if the receptionist in the motel, or any random passerby, can hear him. "You're not in Hell! We're in the fucking _prairie_! Come on, man, just—snap out of it. _Please_, dude, _please_."

Alec wonders if he's starting to lose it, too, starting to lose his mastery of stoicism. Maybe insanity is contagious—or hereditary, or something. But then again, he's never been this desperate. "'S too bad," Dean says, his voice, _that horrendously calm voice_, remaining placid. "Kinda liked you, kid. Guess your friends decided to make nice this time. Makin' you look like me, this transgenic stuff, though, haven't seen that before. Wanna clue me in to what they're planning? I mean, usually when I figure out this is all your guys' trick, you follow it up with some torture shit. So what is it this time? Knives, guns, torches, sticks, needles, pliers, water…gimme a hint, huh?"

Alec does the only thing he can think of, an action he'd done more times than he cares to admit in recent days. Coiling up the strength in his muscles, he releases his right arm from Dean, pulls it back, and sends a punch straight at Dean's face, his knuckles stuttering against hard bone, and then hitting air as Dean falls to the ground. Alec's hand tingles from the impact, but he drops to his knees, grabs Dean by the collar of his shirt, and shakes him, glaring into green, _so lucid_, eyes.

"DEAN!" Alec shouts, like in raising the volume, Dean'll miraculously come back to reality. "YOU'RE NOT IN HELL! _Come on_, Dean, come on!"

He jars him again, Dean granting him a bloody smile, more viscous fluid running down from a laceration on his cheek. "Pretty light, don'tcha think?" he laughs. "You must be new."

"FUCK!" Alec yells again, leaning against the wall and staring down at Dean's resigned, almost relaxed, expression. Acknowledging his utter lack of options, he pulls out his cell phone and punches in numbers with unsteady fingers. She picks up after two rings, and Alec doesn't wait before commanding, "Max! Look, I know you're in deep shit where you are, but I really need your help. Please."

She splutters for a few moments, presumably, Alec surmises, because she's endeavoring to explain the phone call to whoever is holding her captive without actually explaining anything. But she covers, because she hears the uncharacteristic panic in his voice, his plea for help, and he's never done that before. She's got a gun at her head held by a demon, but if there's one thing she knows about Alec, it's that he never asks for help. Ever.

"Alec, all right, just calm down," she says, trying to compose her own voice, even though her heart rate is jacked up higher than when Meg had first appeared. "Just tell me what's going on."

Alec can tell she fears the worst, and he can't inform her otherwise. Because it's _worse_ than she fears. "It's Dean," he says, the words only heightening her worry. "He's not hurt, he—Max, I—just tell me: how'd you talk B-Ben down? When he was off the deep end?"

Max inhales sharply, and Alec was prepared for it, but he doesn't have the capacity to care about her reservations right now. "Alec, tell me what the hell is going on!"

"_Max_!"

She's completely treading water here, scared at the tone in Alec's voice. He'd always been so secure…even with Rachel, at least he'd tried to save face, but…the pure _terror_ halts any painful memories brought up, and she blocks out Meg, just concentrates on the small piece of plastic in her hand and the words coming through it.

"I couldn't save him, Alec," she says with a hitch, thinking back to when she and Ben had fought, and he'd begged her to save him by killing him. "I tried to talk to him, but he was just…he was too far gone."

"No!" Alec objects, starting to crunch his own phone. "Dean's not like that!"

Max shuts her eyes, trying unsuccessfully to even out her breathing. "I said I couldn't save my brother, Alec," she repeats, "but you can save Dean. I don't know what happened with him or with you, and right now I can't do shit, but…Alec, listen to me. Whatever's going on, you can bring him back. You haven't let me down so far when it counts, and—this counts, Alec. _Make_ it count."

"Max, I can't! He doesn't know where he is, he doesn't think any of this is real! I don't know how to _fix_ this!" Alec admits, staring down at Dean, who's simply sitting on the concrete, apathetically wiping blood from his face. "I can't help Dean, and I can't help you, and I can't—"

"Alec, shut the hell up," Max interrupts. "You _can_. I trust you, and I—"

"I think that's enough cheerleading," Alec hears another voice come across the line. It has the same oily quality as Ruby's had, and Alec realizes Max isn't just trapped by some lunatic, but a demon.

Not that he can inject any concerns, because he's promptly met with a click and then silence.

"Damn it!" he swears, shoving his phone in his pocket and scraping his nails through his hair.

Trying to imbue strength into himself from words he'd never in a million years thought he'd hear Max say to him, he kneels down next to Dean. "Dean, what—what can I do to convince you that I'm real, that this is real?" he begs.

Dean looks, of all things, amused. "Nothing, half-pint," he snorts. "Because it _isn't_ real. Sammy's not really dead, and you're not really some freaky version of me, and I'm just wondering when this'll all change back into the Hell I know and hate."

"I don't want to knock you out again, but—"

"Ha!" Dean laughs. "That's new, too. You _don't_ want to inflict harm. I guess after two thousand years, you've finally come up with some novel ideas."

Turning away from Dean in frustration, Alec takes a deep breath. "Okay," he says to himself. He tries to think of what Max would do in this situation, but comes up blank. Then he reasons that brute strength probably isn't the way to go in this. The problem is with Dean's head; Dean isn't exactly _resisting_. Against his will, he thinks of what Psy Ops did to him, but then backs away from that. He neither has one of those lasers—which isn't to say he'd ever use one even if he had it, let alone on Dean—nor does he think it'd work well anyway.

"All right, so…Ordinary shrinks," he ponders aloud. He's never had direct experience in the realm, but while he was still on team assignments, one of their subjects _was_ a psychiatrist. "Go along with the delusion…?" Alec says rhetorically, searching his memory to figure out if that was actually something he'd heard, or just some random shit his brain is fabricating.

But what the hell. Nothing else has worked.

"You got me," Alec says, turning back to Dean. He'd lowered his voice into something like a growl, and hopes his new expression isn't still one of worry, but rather intimidation…kinda. "Let's go, Winchester."

Dean laughs, but gets up, sighing. "Do your worst," he chuckles.

Alec literally bites his tongue at Dean's flippant fatalism, once more in disbelief at how much more awful Dean's time in Hell must have been than he'd let on. He leans down and, saying a silent apology, hefts Dean up with enough force to bruise and drags him towards the Impala. Alec brushes a hand quickly over the sleek body, glad that Dean hadn't taken her and split after all, and shoves him in the front seat.

The keys are in the ignition, which Alec takes to mean that Dean had initially intended to skip town, when the psychosis—or whatever it is—struck. Sliding in and locking the doors, Alec starts up the car with a low rumble and peels out onto the freeway, leaving black marks behind him and the scent of rubber and irreparable grief in the air.

* * *

Meg watches as Max's body language changes at hearing Alec's frantic voice buzzing through the phone, watches as it alters between anger, terror, pain, and a smattering of others. She waits in amusement as she tries to talk the other transgenic through something involving Dean, but soon it becomes tiresome.

"I think that's enough cheerleading," she says. Before Max can protest, she grabs the phone, shutting it and cutting off the conversation. She then proceeds to drop the cell to the ground and step on it, digging her heel into the plastic, the device quickly becoming a pile of unrecognizable puzzle pieces.

Max stares at the wreckage in silent panic. Her cell was the last facsimile of hope she had of alerting Alec to…something, anything. Of the ability to even attempt to walk him through something should he need it. She doesn't expect him to need her aid again, but the fact that she's physically denied of the _possibility_ to do so incites anxiety.

_He'll save Dean, then he'll come here and save you_, the very feeble shred of optimism inside her head says. _He's strong enough, he can do it. Just have faith._

Not long ago, she would have scoffed at herself, at thinking—and _acknowledging_ that she's thinking it—Alec could come through in such a monumentally huge way. But now, she doesn't just need him to set Dean straight, she needs him to save her and dozens of other transgenics' lives. She doubts he knows the enormity of what he's about to get himself into, will only find out once he arrives, but hopes, knows, that his training and ability to improvise will work.

It has to.

"You—You sure you wanted to do that?" Max says, swallowing. "He might call back."

Meg gives her a smile not unlike one someone would give a child who doesn't understand basic addition. "Oh, I'm not worried about that," she remarks. "He'll come no matter what. It's _you_ who called him, after all, sweetheart."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

Meg looks at her for a second as if waiting for Max to say something else, but then, upon realizing Max really meant the question, laughs. She doesn't, however, elaborate. "So," she says instead, "what was that about? Deano having a breakdown?"

Max's cold glare answers in the affirmative.

"He always was a weakling," Meg reflects. "Always had an Achilles heel for Sammy. I'm betting your freak co-leader's managed to add himself into that."

"Did you do something to Sam?" Max demands, feeling her fury rise.

Meg shakes her head. "Nah, not me," she replies. "But if certain grapevines are to be trusted, well."

She leaves the sentence dangling, allows Max to fill in the blanks with fear. If something had happened to Dean's brother…

No, Max coaches herself. Fear isn't going to do anyone any good. She hasn't had relations with demons before very recently, but so far, despite Meg's recounts and reprehensible actions, Max can't see how they're any worse than what Manticore had doled out once upon a time. If she takes away the title of demon, just focuses on what Meg's said and done, she realizes that maybe, just maybe, she can get her head together again.

"Listen here, bitch," Max says steadily, bringing her eyes up to Meg's. "You can babble and rant all you want, but fact is, you've got only hours before you're toast. You can smirk and laugh and whatever the hell else, but your ego has worn out its welcome. I mean, really, you need _bait_ and _henchmen_ to even get one of T.C.'s leaders back so you can _try_ to kill him. Pretty sad, if you ask me."

Meg rolls her eyes, and Max's stomach doesn't sink in frustration, because, to be honest, she hadn't had much stock in Meg falling for her snide comments. "You know," Meg says exasperatedly, "I really wasn't going to do this, but you've gotten even more annoying than I'd thought possible. So, in that case…"

She holds her hand out, slowly contracting it into a fist. Max feels an invisible vise around her neck and looks up at Meg, who's grinning once more. The hold is tighter than Dean's had been what seemed like weeks ago, but has the same end result. Meg's sadistic face is the last thing Max sees before fading into black, wondering if she'd gone too far and her words actually got through to the demon—if Meg actually is going to kill her.

Right now, she thinks dizzily, it's pretty damn likely.


	35. Chapter XXXIV: Trinity

A/N: Same stuff applies as in the first chapter.

A/N part two: Specific episodes of _Supernatural_ mentioned are: "Pilot," "Folsom Prison Blues," and "No Rest for the Wicked." Specific episodes of _Dark Angel_ mentioned are: "The Berrisford Agenda."

A/N part three: So, thing is, I'd had all intention to post this yesterday, but the Fourth had a leetle more fanfare than I'd thought and, long story short, I ended up sleeping in until 1:45. (I also may or may not have consumed some C2H5OH.) Yeah. For all y'all who celebrate the Fourth of July, though, I hope you had a great time; and for all y'all who didn't, erm…hope you had a great Sunday.

A/N part four: For those also following "As You Are Now, So Once Was I," a special message: Because I see the light at the end of this story and am kinda on a roll, that one might be put on hold until this one finishes up. I'll still be brainstorming, and will ideally still have a few chapters done by the time ODATSQ is done, but for the immediacy, I'd like to concentrate on this one. Don't hate me, and know that in no way, shape, or form am I giving up on AYANSOWI, however. 'Cause I'm not.

* * *

**Of Desire and the Status Quo**

_**Chapter XXXIV: Trinity

* * *

**_

Climbing the stairs to the third floor of the rundown building takes no time at all, and Rade doesn't bother to knock, instead forcing open the door with her shoulder. The apartment is quiet, dark, and if it were any other transgenic, she'd think they'd gone for a walk (they don't do very well cooped up like rats in a maze). But for Trinity, an ex-Psy Ops employee, it was par for the course, unfortunately.

"Trinity?" she calls, her eyes quickly adjusting to the dim light. "Trinity, I need to talk to you. It's Rade."

It's faint, but after a few moments, Rade hears a whispered "Bedroom."

Quietly, she makes her way to the designated room and steps inside. There's a blanket-covered lump on the bed, and she walks over, sitting on the edge. Since escaping from Manticore and moving to T.C., everyone had looked a little healthier (despite T.C.'s not-very-sanitary-and-lacking-in-reasonable-food), chiefly because, well, virtually anything's better than Manticore. Trinity and the other Psy Ops personnel had gained a little weight and perhaps some color in their cheeks, but they were still worse off than the others.

All of them had suffered the hell that was Manticore, but the Psy Ops members arguably had it the hardest. They not only had to endure the awfulness on themselves, but also had to delve into their fellow transgenics' minds, probe inside and jumble them up. Make them forget, or make them guilt more than they were already; messing with people's brains, memories, thoughts, was nothing anyone wanted to do.

Worse still, regardless of she being the "best coping" of the Psy Ops units, Trinity was dealing with more personally assigned shame than her brethren. For unlike the other two units, who worked on relatively low-profile transgenics, Trinity was assigned to the higher-profile ones. In fact, she was the primary unit who worked on Alec.

He didn't hold it against her personally—he's all too well versed in being manipulated and exploited—but still she felt contrition, and on many occasions simply refused to talk to him. Max either. Because while it isn't like Max and Alec tend to share overtly personal information, for someone like Trinity, they'd have a confab or two. And Trinity isn't willing to endure that.

"Trinity, I need your help," Rade says softly.

Trinity turns her electric blue eyes from the cracked, water-stained wall to look blankly at Rade. _Last time I "helped" someone, they almost forgot the love of their life, just remembered that they put her into a coma_, her eyes say.

"Dix was nearly killed," Rade says, staring meaningfully at Trinity. "There was an explosion, Kali was possessed by a demon…it's all kind of complicated."

Rade hadn't realized just how _weird_ everything sounded to someone who wasn't there. Demons? Possessions? If Rade hadn't seen it with her own eyes, _she_ wouldn't have believed it. Dean Winchester confession or no.

Rade feels a gentle pressing on her brain, smoky fingers searching, and glares. She knows Trinity hadn't meant to mind read, but it made it no less uncomfortable. "I wouldn't be asking if it weren't absolutely necessary, Trin," she says. "Dix has acute amnesia. He found something on the computer about Dean Winchester—another long, _really_ long, story—but he can't remember it. We need you to find out what it was."

_Dean who?_

Rade shifts her weight and runs a hand through her hair. She hadn't really wanted to get into this. But Trinity had asked, and considering the favor being requested of her, Rade guesses an explanation is the least she can do.

"He's, uh…he came…well, we don't know much about him," says Rade. "Nothing apart from that he has a brother named Sam, and he looks exactly like Alec would ten years from now."

Trinity's eyes go wide, and she sits up in bed, her hair lank and body fragile, but her eyes remarkably, suddenly, sharp. "_What_?" she exclaims, her voice sounding like it's through a megaphone in the silence of the room.

Rade, taken aback, blinks. "Y-Yeah, he—he just appeared a couple days ago, we don't really know how. He said he was in Hell, but I d—"

Trinity swallows and stands up, straightening herself. "He's telling the truth," she says.

Rade frowns. She'd been willing enough to give Dean at least half the benefit of the doubt (especially given recent, possession-y events), but she hadn't been nearly as adamant as Trinity sounds.

"How do you—he was?"

"I had a vision," Trinity says, going to the door and grabbing a thin jacket from the knob. "I thought it was a fluke. I didn't think it was _real_."

Rade chooses not to comment on how Psy Ops units weren't made to have fluke visions. "Okay, so…what did you see?"

Trinity zips up the hoodie and, grabbing a rubber band from the nightstand, draws her hair up into a messy ponytail. "Not much," she answers. "Just…I'd thought it was Alec…but he looked different. Older. He was covered in blood, dirt. Looked like he didn't know what the hell was going on."

"So, how do you know he's not lying out his ass?" Rade inquires, not wanting to have misgiving about Trinity, but knowing that particularly now, any visions the Psy Ops units may get aren't necessarily always flawless.

Trinity turns her eyes on Rade, the brightness in them unnerving. "My job wasn't just to implant memories or take them away, _Rade_," Trinity snaps. "I had to feel things, sense things. I had to know what my targets were feeling in order to fuck them up. You want to think someone's lying, fine. But don't you dare think _I'm_ lying. I didn't _ask_ for this shit."

Rade holds up her hands in surrender. "All right, all right, I'm sorry," she says. "We're just…a little stressed over in HQ. There are—"

"Demons. I know," says Trinity. "I saw them. I knew they were there, I just…didn't want to believe they were real."

Rade bites her tongue from lashing out at Trinity for not bothering to tell the rest of T.C. that they were about to become taken hostage by their own. That Max was going to be taken hostage by a previously benign X6.

"I don't suppose you could, you know, get a message out to Alec and Dean, could you?" Rade asks. "Tell them what's waiting for them?"

Trinity stares. "I can kind of telepath with other Psy Ops operatives," she says. "But not with other transgenics, and certainly not with Ordinaries. No matter how special Dean Winchester may be, he's still an Ordinary."

"It was worth a try," Rade mutters. Louder, she questions, "You'll read Dix's mind, then? Figure out what he found on Dean and Sam?"

Trinity takes a second, but then nods. "I will," she answers. "But I'm not promising it'll be pretty." Rade narrows her eyes in query. Trinity explains, "Dean may've looked all orphan boy, but he went to Hell for a reason, Rade."

"He said it was because Sam died and he made some kind of deal."

Trinity shrugs, indifferent. "Maybe," she concedes, "but that doesn't mean he was a saint beforehand. And I'd bet all of T.C. that he didn't tell you everything."

Rade rolls her eyes. "I surmised as much," she chuckles.

Nodding, Trinity glances out the window for a moment, and then moves toward the door, hearing Rade's footsteps behind her.

The medic had just asked her to read Dix's mind, but Trinity has a sinking feeling that, whenever Alec and Dean get back, she's going to be assailed with some not-so-uplifting emotions and memories from the latter. She'd awakened sweaty and crying with just the one, split-second vision she'd had of Dean's arrival. She's not generally afraid of things, but she's afraid of what Dean's mind holds.

* * *

Alec's driving once more, and his posture, his grip on the wheel, is tighter and more tense than it was yesterday, a feat even he hadn't thought possible. He refuses to look at Dean this time; he learned that particular lesson a hundred miles ago. A hundred miles ago, he looked at Dean and saw fucking _contentment_. _Resignation_. No one would accuse Alec of being a _fan_ of angsty, depressed, post-Sam-death Dean, but he's even less a fan of delusional Dean. The Dean that believes, _wants_ to believe, he's in Hell and everything in the past few days has been another mind warp.

So he'd decided then and there to simply not look to his right, not for anything. Unless, you know, Dean suddenly started convulsing and foaming at the mouth or something. Then he might at least consider it.

Somewhere in the back of his head, he registers that he should be hungry, given that the last time he ate was…well, he's not quite sure right now, but he knows it was a while back. But that hunger is masked by everything else that's assaulting him at the moment; namely, the S-word.

He's tried not to think about the fact that they've got a _dead body_ in the backseat of Dean's car—no, not just a dead body, _Sam's_ dead body—because, frankly, even Alec finds that a little gross. It isn't that Sam has started to…smell or anything, but it's the mere thought that skeeves him out. Oh, he's killed dozens of people, but he never exactly toted their bodies around.

He plans on letting Dean do that funeral pyre thing that he'd talked about once before, but he'd rather Dean actually be in as right a mind as possible before he did it. He has a feeling sane-Dean wouldn't much appreciate burning Sam's body while he thought it was all fictional. Alec isn't inclined to entertain the remotest possibility that Dean won't return to normal (well, normal as of when he'd gotten back from Hell anyhow), which makes the whole Sam thing that much more urgent.

Now more than ever, Alec wishes he had someone who knew Dean, knew the hunting life, to help him.

Sam, Alec sulks cynically, would be an excellent candidate. Except for the whole being dead inconvenience.

He's periodically toyed with the idea of doing some sort of séance (give him a break—one of his fellow X5s was on a long-term assignment to some Wiccan chick, and she was very preachy) or something, determining that a ghostly Sam would be better than no Sam. He was even willing to overlook the probability that there aren't any good ghosts, owing to that Dean and Sam used to bust said creatures for a living if it meant getting some help, some insight.

God knows why he's having these thoughts _now_. Before even just yesterday, he felt no need for an outsider's assistance. Then bam, they meet Sam and he's a clueless child. He's gotten very good at rationalizing, though: he concludes that because he'd gotten more or less used to having Dean around, and Dean's personality to go with it, Sam's presence, Sam's personality, was an intriguing change. Sam was simply a foreign specimen to be studied.

'Course, he knows what Max—or Rade or Mole—would say. That he's got some inferiority complex or some intrinsic desire to have a family, a _normal_ family, _brothers_, who could not only help, but would want to protect him, too.

He scoffs at himself. This absence of hardass Dean and the constant threat of White and the military has made him into a pansy.

He glances in the rearview out of habit, and wonders if Dean would have let Sam have the legroom of the front seat, or whether he'd force him to be in the back, scrunched up as humorously as if in coach airplane seats. Then he acknowledges that it'd be _neither_, most likely; in all probability, it'd be _he_ in the back, Sam in the passenger seat, Dean driving. Alec suspects that, for however aww-look-at-me-I'm-cute Sam's face might be, those ten feet of muscle would have high odds of matching Alec's will.

Then there's the factor that, however much Alec would like to deny it, he and Dean are quite similar. Which would mean that Sam would know exactly what buttons to push or not push, what things would work and what wouldn't, and everything in between.

Alec curses himself out. It wouldn't do any good to dwell on what could be, or what should be. Sam _should_ be alive, Dean _should_ be coherent, he _should_ be back in Seattle arguing with Max over food rations. He _could_ be touring the countryside with Sam and Dean, he _could_ bet Dean that he'd get more women in roadside bars, Sam _could_ be waiting in a crap motel researching something-or-other and waiting to bitch out the both of them for being shameless sleazeballs.

He sees a minimart at the next exit, thinks about taking it (he could really do for some hard liquor right about now), but looks at the time, looks at how far they have yet to go, thinks about what horrid things could be happening in T.C., and instead floors the gas pedal. They're still only in western South Dakota, and the way the Impala, he notices, is guzzling fuel, he guesses they're going to have to stop a lot more often than they would have in the Mustang. They've got about a quarter tank left, and Alec thinks they can make it through the stretch of farmland to the next hamlet before they need to stop.

He reaches down to open the window, glad for the rush of air through the car. As much as he admires Dean's Chevy, he's more content in his motorcycle. The constant ripples of wind around him, the risk when he has to drive on water-soaked roads in the midst of Seattle's rainy season…driving a car takes that away, and he's not a big proponent of it.

As it happens, apparently all the cars coming through the aforementioned stretch of farmland ran out of gas, too, for when Alec pulls into the beat-up station, the Impala's gas light throbbing a bright orange, there are vehicles filling up at all but one pump, a couple more in the parking lot. Which, Alec scowls, would make it significantly harder to siphon fuel without being seen.

Ignoring Dean some more, Alec checks their dwindling stack of cash, then estimates the miles they have to go, then calculates the miles per gallon the Impala gets. None of the numbers crunch favorably, which makes Alec's mood even worse. If it were at any other time, he'd just find the nearest bar and hustle the hell out of the townies. But Dean's in some psychotic break, Sam's dead, and Max and Terminal City are at the mercy of demons.

To say time is of the essence would earn you a punch in the face.

But he sees no other choice, and so coughs up seventy dollars to fill up the Impala's tank. The nozzle is barely returned to its holster before they're back on the road, Alec noting with dismay that the next sign they pass welcomes them to Wyoming. Three states down, four to go.

* * *

Max wakes groggily, vision blurry before slowly focusing. Meg's still sitting on the desk, examining her gun, and looks up amusedly as Max comes back to consciousness. "Look who's finally up," she smiles. "You didn't stay out as long as I'd hoped. I'll keep that in mind."

"Transgenic," Max snaps, powering through her lethargy and post-unconsciousness headache.

Meg sneers.

"I don't suppose you'd let me, you know," Max says, motioning with her head (and immediately regretting it as a new flood of ache encompasses her brain) towards the sub-standard latrines.

"Oh no, not at all," Meg says sarcastically. "Go ahead. And while I let you run free, why don't I give you the gun, too?"

"Well, that'd certainly be helpful," Max suggests. She runs her fingers through her hair and grumbles at how sweaty it is. "Or," she says, "maybe crack open a window."

Meg rolls her eyes and sighs. "You transgenics complain more than Dean."

Max tries not to let Meg's words affect her. Truth be, the more time that elapses without Alec and Dean here, the more notches her concern rises. She's conversing with a fucking _demon_—she's got no evidence to back up Meg's claims that she hadn't already done something to them. For all Max knows, Meg had sent some of her cronies to go dispatch Alec and Dean before they got back.

And then what? She and T.C. would be at the whims of Meg indefinitely. And with their luck, White or the military would choose _that_ time to execute their assault. Whenever Alec's been out on a job, Max has had a tiny wisp of worry in the back of her mind, the one that says maybe he won't come back, but that wisp is currently a full-fledged wave of terror.

She looks at Meg, hoping she'll see some kind of sign that the demon is weakening, or tiring, or _something_ that she could use to her advantage, but sees nothing. If anything, Meg looks even _more_ energized. Whereas Max, much to her chagrin, feels her body exhausting. Really, the only things she has going for her is her shark DNA that causes her to not need to sleep much, if at all, and the hope that Alec and Dean are badass enough to fight their way in.

And that, perhaps, Dean had bestowed some of his knowledge onto Alec. Max hadn't initially taken the whole demon hunter thing as legit, but now she trusts that it's entirely true. So if Dean had taught Alec things, all the better.

On that note, Max hopes that maybe they'd found Sam, convinced him to come with them. She's not sure how balanced Sam would be—she's fully operating on the presumption that Sam is alive; _has _to—considering Dean had been dead for thirteen years, but if he is sound enough in the head, well. Two experienced hunters and one transgenic with a strange affinity to the first is, in Max's eyes, the best angle they've got.

She stares at Meg again, wiping some more sweat from her forehead, and wishes she'd taken Dean's words as gospel. Maybe then…well, maybe she'd have a better chance of doing _something_, anything.

"All right, look," says Max wearily, "you can keep all of us hostage or whatever, but please…let Rade fix up Dalton. He didn't do anything to you. He's not a part of this. And he's—he's just a _kid_."

Meg laughs. "What makes you think I give a rat's ass about any of you?" she asks. "What happened to that kid is nothing compared to what I _could_ do to him. So go ahead, push your luck some more. Maybe I'll be nice enough to let you give the freak a funeral."

Max swallows. She hadn't really expected Meg to cave, but just hearing the cold indifference towards a sixteen-year-old boy bleeding out sends needles into her heart. She looks at the floor, silent.

* * *

Though it hadn't been used for years, Trinity's apartment contains an old, wood-burning fireplace, remnants of half-charred logs still in the furnace. It catches her eye, but Rade isn't looking for something to spice up her own living area; rather, the fire poker tossed a few feet away. It's rusted, but the iron underneath is solid, and Rade smiles as she hands it to Trinity.

"Here," she says. "Apparently demons aren't big iron fans."

Trinity takes it without any argument, just peers at Rade for a moment before following the medic out of her apartment. "Is Dix okay?" she asks once they're on the street.

Rade surveys their immediate surroundings, her eyes sharp for any demons that might be milling about, and then turns to Trinity. "He's alive, if that's what you mean," she says flatly, thinking of Dix's broken body and how close he'd come to death. "What, you didn't have a vision about that?"

Trinity glares. "I'm not some crystal ball," she says, her voice cold. "I don't have premonitions. I don't even really have _complete_ visions. I have feelings, sensations about what's going on. And even then, not nearly about everything. I have to have some idea, conscious or unconscious, about the person, or the event."

"So then how'd you have a vision—_feeling_, whatever—about Dean? You'd never met him," replies Rade, lamenting the three blocks they still have to go.

Shrugging, Trinity looks at the stoker in her hand for a moment and then answers, "I don't know. Perhaps because he looks like Alec."

"I don't suppose you know _why_ he looks like Alec," Rade tries.

"I said—"

"You're not a psychic, yeah, yeah, I get it," Rade interrupts. She knows she shouldn't be so hostile; after all, Trinity herself hadn't done anything to her, and she was just as much a victim of Manticore as Rade was. But still, the mere knowledge that she was Psy Ops, that she fucked with people's heads, adds a certain amount of prejudice.

Trinity's face is deceptively blank as she stares at the medic. "You think I _like_ having these abilities?" she seethes lowly. "You think I _liked_ being used by sadistic bastards to scramble up the heads of my own people just because they dared to actually _feel_ something besides brutal murder? You think I _like_ living with the guilt that I did all that shit? That people look at me different because I did all that? Why the hell do you think I stay away from everyone and lock myself up in a crapass apartment, Rade?

"I didn't _ask_ for any of this, and I _hate_ it. I hate that I got this stupid vision of a guy I've never met, and I hate that I know he's as screwed in the head as if I'd scrambled it up for him. And you know what I hate most of all? That I know this guy is going to die once he gets here by that bitch of a demon."

Rade stops, staring at Trinity. She'd planned to apologize, but then Trinity's last statement catches up with her. "What?" she asks hoarsely. "What do you mean he's going to die?"

Trinity laughs humorlessly. "You really believe that demon wants him there so they can chat? She's out for blood—not yours, not Max's, not anyone's except Dean Winchester's."

Rade shakes her head violently. "No," she protests. "No. He's not. You're going to look inside Dix's head, see what the hell's up, and then Dean and Alec are going to kick the shit out of those demons in there. No one's gonna die except those evil sons of bitches."

Trinity doesn't say anything, just starts walking again towards Terminal City proper. Rade takes a deep breath and catches up, fully intending on backing up her words.

When they reach the alleyway adjacent to the medical bay, Rade gestures for Trinity to go first. The Psy Ops unit yanks the iron bars out and then hoists herself down, taking the fire poker with her. Rade checks the alleyway for any remaining demons, sees none (trying not to think of what it may mean that it's empty), and then goes through the window herself, pulling the bars back into place.

Seeing Trinity and then Rade enter, Dix turns his head, still too weak to sit up. Trinity appraises him soundlessly and with no reaction, simply stares. "How are you?" she asks stiltedly, not much for the touchy-feely crap.

"I-I've been b-better," answers Dix in a whisper. "I found some s-s-stuff on D-Dean and his brother, but I c-can't remember. C-Can you—?"

Trinity takes a few steps closer, and puts her hands on either side of Dix's head. He closes his eyes, and Rade watches as Trinity's seem to brighten to an even harsher shade of ice. Rade walks to the doors and puts her ear against them, trying vainly to hear anything, but, like she'd expected, she gets nothing.

Trinity, on the other hand, is faring better. That is to say, getting more of what she set out for.

"_What do you need, Alec?"_

"_There's a guy, his name is Sam…"_

_Sam and Dean Winchester, the most famous serial killers since BTK…_

_Fire. Woman burning on the ceiling._

_Blood. Dripping. Congealing, spreading._

_Prison. Cold spots. Heart attack. Heat._

_Crime scene. Blood. Death. Scratches. A woman, dead._

_Basement. Chalk drawing marring the ceiling._

Trinity jerks back with a kind of chest-deep gasp, and Rade whips toward her, surprised. Dix, were he able to profess any kind of definitive motion, would have done the same. As it is, his one good eye simply widens the slightest bit.

Trinity takes a minute, her hands white-knuckled on the edge of the gurney, and then looks at Rade, then Dix. "I, um…I think there's—I think there's a way to keep the demons at bay," Trinity says in a soft voice.

"What? How?" Rade says, latching onto what little hope Trinity had lent.

"One of the reports you read, Dix," she says, looking at the transhuman. "One of the crime scenes, the one where Dean got dragged to Hell, by some…dogs. In the basement, there was a symbol on the ceiling. I—I don't know what it meant, but it wasn't going to win any interior decorating contests."

"What did it look like?" Rade asks. She has no idea if this symbol thing would work, let alone how in the world they'd be able to draw it without the demons noticing, but at this point, anything is better than nothing.

Trinity pulls aside her shirt, grabs one of Rade's scalpels from the tray next to her, and presses the razor-sharp tip to the skin over her heart, drawing precise lines and curves, liquid red staining her pale flesh and raggedy shirt. Rade, alarmed, reaches forward to take the scalpel away by force, but the look in Trinity's eyes stops her.

It's done in a matter of moments, and Trinity snatches some extra gauze from the same tray, pressing it to the wound to sop up the blood. Thanks to their speeded up clotting factor, it takes only a couple minutes for the blood to stop flowing, and Trinity peels away the gauze, dropping it onto the tray with a splat.

Rade, despite all she's seen in her medical history, winces at the crude cuts in Trinity's skin; they're deep enough so it would be a while before the transgenic accelerated healing knits the wound back together.

Trinity's face is as expressionless as ever, and Rade knows it's due to the fact that each and every one of them had had worse pain than knife cuts. "That's the mark that was on the ceiling?" Rade asks, clearing her throat.

Trinity nods. "I don't know precisely what it does, but maybe it'll stop us from being possessed," she postulates. "And maybe if we draw it on the ceiling or on the floor, it could trap a demon, too."

Rade has her doubts, but Trinity hadn't been wrong so far. And she wasn't one of Manticore's favorite Psy Ops units for nothing. "All right…so…how do you want to do this?" Rade inquires, glancing warily at the doors.

Trinity holds up the scalpel, a few droplets of blood sliding off. Rade eyes it unhappily but, weighing the cons of getting a knife gouged in her skin with having her people slaughtered by denizens of Hell, relents and undoes the first few buttons of her own shirt, exposing the same area that Trinity had.

It hurts, more than Rade had anticipated, but she shows no pain as Trinity keeps dragging the blade across her skin; they were trained not to do so, and damn it, that's one part of Manticore she's not going to erase. She presses gauze onto the new wound, soaking up as much blood as she can.

She looks at Trinity's identical mark, the flesh around it raised and pink. It's some kind of pentagram, and she has no idea if it'll do what Trinity says or not, but she sure hopes so—not just because she's got her skin sliced up, but also because if this plan of Trinity's goes south, they're all likely going to die. A cheery thought.

"Our only shot, the way I see it, is to pretend we've been possessed, somehow convince the demons in there that we're one of them. Then when we can, we draw the symbols. Hopefully, it'll trap them and we can decide what to do from there."

Rade doesn't think it has a good chance of success, but it's a better plan than what she can come up with. She looks at Dix, squeezes his leg lightly, makes sure her shirt is covering up the marks on her chest, and then squares her shoulders.

She's never seen any of those Ordinary movies that depict demonic possessions, and she knows nothing about actual demons, but the best archetype she can think of is Manticore's executives. She thinks that they're as close to demons as you can get without being the real thing.

Exchanging a glance with Trinity, she slides the bar out from between the door handles, hefts open the heavy steel, and walks through, knowing that the die has been cast, and it's time for her to bluff up her shitty hand.


	36. Chapter XXXV: A Grin Without a Cat

A/N: Same stuff applies as in the first chapter. Oh, and unfortunately I neither own _Supernatural_ nor _Dark Angel_.

A/N part two: Specific episodes of _Supernatural_ mentioned are: "Devil's Trap" and kinda "Swan Song." Specific episodes of _Dark Angel_ mentioned are: "Pilot" and "The Berrisford Agenda."

A/N part three: So, I officially have the rest of this story very specifically mapped out, so it should be wrapping up within the next few weeks. Crazy, right?

* * *

**Of Desire and the Status Quo**

_**Chapter XXXV: A Grin Without a Cat

* * *

**_

Rade hadn't exactly had a _plan_ when she and Trinity headed out the medical bay to meet their potential demises, but she hadn't considered that Trinity might. More specifically, that Trinity would have one in which she was to be used as bait.

So it comes as a complete surprise when Trinity's arm comes around and under her neck in a stranglehold, just loose enough so she can breathe, but not _comfortable_ by any means. She sputters and chokes, and looks up at Trinity, trying to convey with her eyes the words she'd much like to shout: "THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?"

It doesn't work. Or, more likely, Trinity is merely ignoring her.

All eyes, demon and transgenic alike, turn towards the pair, Trinity looking eerily demonic, Rade attempting to stay conscious while also not losing her hostage ruse. "Who are you?" asks one of the demons—Rade notes with some sadness that it's one of the X5s, Zig, who'd occasionally helped her bandage up anyone on the rare occasion they'd cop to being hurt.

Of course, had it not been for the facial features, Rade thinks she'd not recognize him. The smirk, the way he holds himself, screams _not Zig_. His eyes are no longer black, rather their normal dark blue, but even those are...different.

"Trinity," Trinity introduces, adding on a smirk of her own that looks completely alien. In fact, if Rade didn't know better, she'd say the Psy Ops unit was possessed, too. "Well," she laughs, "sort of."

Zig snickers, Trinity's mannerisms apparently demony enough to fool. "And that one?" he asks, pointing at Rade.

"Hell if I know," says Trinity. "Found her sneaking out. Think she's a medic or somethin'."

Zig begins to walk towards them, then his eyes narrow. "How do I know this isn't a trick?"

Trinity rolls her eyes—an affectation Rade had never seen her do before. "Come on. If I really were the freak in this body, why would I be stupid enough to walk into a room full of demons? Besides," Trinity continues, and there's a flash in her eyes that Rade saw a mere five minutes ago, "I'm not sure Azazel's daughter would appreciate you wasting time interrogating one of your own, now would she?"

The bulk of the room's members frown, Rade included, but the demons simply smile. "Precaution," says Zig, "you understand."

"Whatever," replies Trinity. "I was stuck on sentry duty, didn't hear the official reason—why are we just sitting here? If I had my say, these abominations would have their blood splattered all over the walls."

"As would I," says Zig, "but we're waiting for Dean Winchester."

Trinity nods. "Tell me we can torture him. He and his brother killed off one of my own a while back, and I'd like some revenge."

"You'd have to talk to _her_ about that," says Zig. "She's got a real personal beef with him."

Trinity's eyes glance towards the hallway leading to Max's office and smiles. Then, in such a quick motion even Rade doesn't realize is happening until it's over, she shoves the medic to the floor, an "oomph" forcing its way out of Rade's mouth.

Then she glances at Dalton; Dalton's colorless face and impaled thigh in particular. "What happened to him?" she asks indifferently.

Zig grins. "Had a bit of an accident," he replies. "We figure bleeding to death'll send a message, yeah?"

Rolling her eyes again, Trinity gestures vaguely towards the X6. "Spare me the theatrics," she says. "Just let this" here, she points at Rade, "fix him up. Nothing worse than a whiny, moaning transgenic to ruin the mood."

Zig exchanges a glance with another one of his demon buddies, and then shrugs. "Fine," he says. Addressing Rade, he commands, "Patch up the wound, and then get the hell away from him. No funny business."

"I'll try my best," Rade deadpans. Making her way over to Dalton, she inspects the injury, carefully schooling her face to not show how gruesome it is. She looks up at Trinity and reports, "I'll need some peroxide, gauze—a lot of it—and bandages. Now."

"Keep an eye on her," Trinity says, and quickly disappears into the medical bay. When she emerges again, Rade thinks she sees a small bulge in Trinity's jacket that hadn't been there before, but she can't dwell much on it, because Trinity's forcing the requested items into her hands and demanding with her eyes to do what Zig had said.

Rade undoes the belt around her waist and holds it out to Dalton. "Sorry, bud," she says. "No anesthetic."

Dalton sets his jaw—they'd all had worse—and nods, biting down on the hard leather. She makes quick work of dislodging the piece of metal from Dalton's leg and disinfecting then dressing the gash, her hands shaking. Not in fear, or even nervousness, but rage. And right then and there, she makes a silent vow to, if Alec didn't beat her to it, rip each and every one of the demons apart, so help her God.

* * *

Alec's not sure who to thank that he doesn't run into any cops on the freeway, so he settles for his own very sporadic luck. To be honest, he hadn't really registered how fast he was driving until he saw the entrance sign to Idaho. Looking down at the speedometer, he noticed the needle was hovering at about a hundred, and though the old gal was groaning a little, Alec had the feeling this was far from the first time she'd been pushed to this limit. He was grateful that not only had highway patrol still deemed the Nowheresland of Wyoming and Montana to be at an seventy-five miles an hour speed limit (therefore going twenty-five over was perfectly reasonable), but that people were drunk or distracted enough at bars or diners to notice him siphoning their gas into the Impala's tank.

They made it from their spot in Wyoming to Seattle in a hair over five hours, and while Alec's worst-case scenario told him Max and the others were surely dead, his gut told him that whoever it was holding them captive wanted him and Dean more than they wanted the others. Which meant that until they arrived, no one would be seriously injured (or, well, _dead_, anyhow), lest he and Dean decide that in and of itself is reason alone to not come.

He briefly considers ditching Dean's car somewhere safe, considering he's not sure if he could guarantee it being in one piece what with the demons' grudge against its owner (plus, the Impala is the only tangible memory Dean has of Sam, and Alec'll be damned if he takes that away), but shoots it down a few seconds later. Not so much because he's willing to risk the Impala being totaled as he wants—needs—to get to Max and the others as soon as physically possible. And, well, he's not entirely positive with whom he'd leave the Impala anyway.

He'd rather eat glass than have Logan look after it, and he's pretty sure Dean would kill him if he did so; Cindy, while he's sure would treat it with respect, has to bribe the police to even keep her apartment, and as such, a large car might not end up being under the radar; Sketchy would be a possibility, but his shitty pad is on the other side of town, and Alec really doesn't feel like explaining, even in short, the situation to his friend who knows zilch about it.

He does, however, park the Impala a block away from T.C., both because there's a gate separating the makeshift city from the actual city, and because he gets the sense the demons would be rather guarding the transgenics trapped inside than a car. (He hopes.)

Alec slows the car to a halt and shuts off the engine, the interior suddenly blasted with quiet. Without the rumbling growl as a tether, Alec feels…well, he's not quite certain what he feels, just that it's _wrong_.

He looks over at Dean for the first time since hundreds of miles ago, futilely hoping that maybe Dean would've come to his senses, but the half-mild interest with a side of confusion and weariness tells him otherwise. He just wishes he could jumpstart Dean like a withered battery, if nothing else than to help him save T.C. He wishes he had Sam—Sam would be able to.

"I don't suppose you happen to believe me now that you're not in Hell, do you?" Alec asks as a last resort.

Dean blinks. "This is bordering on pathetic," he answers, his calm tone still unnerving.

Alec sighs, then gets out of the driver's seat and walks around the car to open Dean's door and drag him out. He'd thus far been refusing to use transgenic strength on his double, but right now, he's not above it. As such, Dean is unable to shake him off, and finds himself yanked to a standing position, Alec glaring at him.

"Listen to me," he says, trying to keep desperation out of his voice. "I'm about to walk into a room full of demons, to approach one who apparently not only wants my head on a platter, but yours as well, in order to try and save the majority of my race. And in all likelihood, die in the process." He starts to turn around, then sighs and looks back at Dean.

"You know, I wish you'd never come here. We were doing just fine, then you come and fuck it all up. And now, 'cause'a you, my people and I are probably going to be slaughtered. For all you and Sam were all about helping others, about telling the government and supernatural to screw themselves, you're doing exactly the opposite. Thanks, dude, really."

He then does turn around and breaks into a run in the direction of T.C., specifically towards the back entrance he'd previously used to smuggle in contraband alcohol before Max inevitably discovered his dastardly plans. And right now, that's all he aims to pay attention to—not, for instance, whether or not Dean is following him, or if his words had even penetrated the man's remarkably thick skull. He's facing his death sentence, and frankly? Despite the disappointment he declines to acknowledge, he can't manage to give much of a shit about Dean Winchester.

* * *

Rade supposes the air in the command center isn't any hotter than usual, but there's sweat beading at her forehead and her clothes feel sticky, as if she weren't in one of the chilliest cities in the Pacific Northwest. She notes that many of her brethren are in similar boats, some more than others. And some, the ones Manticore made for sheer brutality, are fidgeting with barely restrained anger and the need to _do something_.

They don't, however, given that when one of them had tried something a couple hours back, the demon closest to him had nearly snapped his neck before Trinity managed to convince the demon to not kill him. After all, she'd said, they don't want a dead body stinking up the joint.

She'd cleaned up Dalton well enough, but even with their hastened healing, the wound was deep, jagged, and they might as well have been out in the middle of nowhere for the level of sophistication of her medical supplies. She's not a brain surgeon or anything, and she was made in a lab, but she _is_ still a medic. Strictly speaking, she never swore the Hippocratic Oath, but it almost physically pains her to not be able to do absolutely everything within her ability to help.

The ashen, sweaty, tired face of the sixteen-year-old next to her is more than enough to make her hate the world. She reaches over and brushes the hair out of Dalton's eyes, and he looks at her listlessly.

She's interrupted in her simultaneous cursing of Alec for not getting here faster and praying that this'll all be over soon (for better or worse) by Trinity's sudden sharp intake of breath. Everyone, demons and transgenics alike, glance up to stare at her, though the demons are infinitely more suspicious.

When Trinity comes out of what everyone but the demons know to be a vision (or "feeling," Rade remembers cynically), she looks at Zig, that foreign expression remaining on her face. "This damn body got some vision thing," she scoffs. Zig raises his brow in question, and Trinity smiles. "Seems like we got a visitor."

Zig matches her grin and begins to move towards the main entrance of Terminal City to greet whom he assumes are Alec and Dean, but Trinity puts a hand harshly on his chest. "Let me," she says.

Zig looks disappointed—a look Rade would very much like to beat the shit out of—but then sighs. "Go ahead. We'll all get a crack at him anyway," he accedes, the implication nothing but threateningly clear.

"And anyway," Trinity smirks, "wrong direction, sweetheart."

Her words still nettling, she goes towards the heretofore virtually unknown entrance in search of Alec, soon vanishing down the hallway, passing Max's office. Once she's sure she's out of ear- and eyeshot, she drops her shoulders and massages her temples, wishing she were back in her apartment. The lights and sounds of Command were the harsh and unwelcome antitheses to the blessed darkness she's used to, and as much as she wants to help her fellow transgenics, her headache is a _bitch_.

She reaches the end of the hallway just as Alec is maneuvering his way through a window so caked with dust, rust, and unidentifiable matter that it's nearly invisible. He lands silently—a perk of being part cat—and then notices he's not alone.

"Trinity?" he asks with some surprise. Last he'd known, she was blocks away and by her lonesome.

"Shh," she hisses. Her voice urgent, she holds up a hand to stave off any other words from him. "Listen to me very carefully. Demons have possessed some of our own, and have the rest of us on lockdown, Max getting her own personal one in her office. Dalton's hurt pretty bad; Rade did her best, but he's not doing so well. As far as everyone in there knows, I'm possessed as well and am supposed to be bringing you and Dean back here—where is Dean?"

Alec had up till now been doing exactly as Trinity asked, face stoic in the way only a list of battle schematics can bring, but at her abrupt stop, he looks away. Trinity's slap jolts him back into the right (though unsavory) frame of mind.

"Sam died," he says. He's not sure how much Trinity knows, but she's thankfully letting him be the one to say it. "We found him finally, but he'd been hanging with a demon for the last thirteen years, and long story short, he ended up saving both of us, but he got killed in the process. Dean…Dean went off the deep end. He thinks he's back in Hell, that this is all some illusion, that Sam's alive. I can't snap him out of it."

Trinity nods. Though she'd never been in combat directly, she is a Manticore creation: she knows the stakes, the consequences. Even if the current ones are worse than even Manticore could cook up.

"So what do you want to do?" Trinity asks.

Alec laughs humorlessly; isn't _that_ the million-dollar question. He shrugs. "I haven't the slightest clue."

To Alec's surprise, Trinity smiles—this one genuine and not laced with evil—and replies, "I have a few ideas."

Alec's look of impatient doubt is prompt enough.

"The way I see it, we've got two major issues here," Trinity says, so quickly Alec has to concentrate doubly hard to understand it all. "We need to get the demons out of those of us they hijacked, especially the one possessing Kali, and we need to get Dean to exterminate the other half of that demon's plan."

"Okay…how do we do that?" Alec inquires. He'd in another case hate being the one not knowing what to do, taking orders instead of giving them, but here he's more than happy to let Trinity take the wheel.

"Rade got me in the first place so I could read Dix's mind, because in the explosion he was rendered acutely amnesic—"

"Wait, _explosion_?" Alec sputters. "Missed that memo."

Trinity snaps her fingers. "Not the matter at hand," she bites. Alec shakes his head violently to clear his thoughts. "I saw a whole lotta things, but one in particular stood out: if my instincts are right, and they usually are, one of those images was of a symbol to trap a demon." She pulls aside her shirt to show the raised red etching on her chest, and Alec tilts his head, not in confusion, but in comprehension. Or, more accurately, recollection.

Immensely grateful that he hadn't left it in the Impala, he pulls out of his jacket the journal from which he'd read the incantation that exorcised Ruby. Flipping through the pages like he'd done it dozens of times before, he finally comes upon the page with the incantation…next to which he sees the symbol identical to the crude tattoo Trinity and Rade carved.

"It's called a devil's trap," he reads, eyes scanning the text. "Looks like you just have to draw this thing, lure the demon into it, and they can't get out unless the lines are broken. I'm gonna say that's our best bet, what do you think?"

"Yes," Trinity immediately agrees. She hesitates for a moment, and then says in a softer, more apprehensive voice, "If we can get the demon guarding Max out there—which, considering she wants you, that's pretty likely—I think I can distract the demons long enough for you to draw the symbol and trap her."

"Distract? How?" Alec asks warily.

She merely looks at him, expecting him to fill in the blanks. When he doesn't, she reluctantly elaborates, "I can do more than reprogram people and make them forget things," she says, and Alec's eyes flicker with painful remembrance of when she'd worked him over after Rachel. "A lot more. I can't guarantee anything, including my life or the lives of the transgenics that are possessed, but it's our best shot."

Alec's gut reaction is to tell her she's insane, that the risk isn't worth it. But this is war, and he knows better than just about anyone that in such times, sacrifice is needed. As much as it hurts to say so.

"Okay," he slowly agrees. "But, uh…what about Dean? What's the demon's plan?"

"I have more heightened senses than you all," Trinity says, and Alec resists a _No duh_ response. "I heard the demon tell Max things. She met with White. Made some sort of deal, an arrangement."

Alec groans. "Perfect. White and demons, just what we need."

"I'm not entirely sure what the plan is, but I can guess."

Alec doesn't need to have heard the specifics either to make his own more-or-less-accurate conjecture. Sliding his fingers tiredly through his hair, he suggests, "I'm betting White is so power-hungry that he thinks teaming up with a demon will help his Apocalypse fantasy along. 'Course, I'm also betting that little shit doesn't realize that the only thing the demons want is Dean."

"Sounds plausible," Trinity says. "I'm thinking we just might have a chance to beat all this if Dean can head off White and we can capture these demons."

"Okay, assuming we can, what then? We can't exactly have a trapped demon forever right in the middle of Command, Trinity," Alec snarks.

She barely holds herself back from clocking him one, the sole reason for refraining being that she knows that in this instance, his snark is merely a poor cover-up for his fear and panic. "I'm hoping Dean can finish her off. Somehow."

Alec stares at her, incredulous. "You're betting all our lives on _Dean_ knowing some secret trick? That's real encouraging."

"You got something better, genius, I'd love to hear it!" Trinity snarls, her tone only barely below the threshold of it carrying down the hallway. Alec doesn't respond, though he'd love to. "Exactly. Now, here." She takes from her pocket a small bottle of spray paint they'd used to demarcate rations and parts that she'd nicked from when she went to get Rade's supplies. "This should do."

Alec looks at the aerosol in his hand, still in disbelief that it is, for lack of a better term, their Holy Grail. The strategy, he knows, is in theory simple enough—certainly on paper easier than that Prague job he'd had—but the execution for which he has a feeling of dread will be anything but.

"All right, so, how are you going to bungee Dean back to sanity?" Alec asks, Dean still the primary wild card in this whole harebrained operation.

In a level of confidence both transgenics wish were mountains more concrete, she replies, "I've got an idea for that, too. Though not one anyone'll like, least of all Dean."

Sighing, Alec has to acknowledge that delicacy is the one thing none of them can afford at the moment. "Do it," he confirms. "Do whatever you have to. Right now, we need as many able-bodied people as we can."

Trinity nods. Jerking her head towards Command, she says, "The demons in there are dumber than rocks; they're brute force only, near as I can make out. Just tell them the truth—that I was lying, that I wasn't possessed, and that you let me escape. They won't hurt you; they can't."

"Oh yeah?" Alec coughs in skepticism. "Pretty sure that demon said she wanted both me _and_ Dean."

"Yes," Trinity concurs, "but I gather that she knows that killing you won't help her find out where Dean is. Besides, if all goes right, he'll come back here after he's finished with White."

Alec laughs. "If all goes right…" He can't believe they're even having this conversation. A week ago, if someone had told him he and Trinity would be devising a plan held together by shoelaces and duct tape, he'd think they were mentally unsound.

"Good luck, Alec," Trinity says solemnly.

"Yeah, you, too," he replies, and pulls her into a brief hug.

"Just keep 'em busy until I come back," she calls as she hoists herself up and out the window through which Alec had come.

Her departure makes the air seem uncomfortably hot and compressing, and he feels like he's back standing on the edge of a deep tank, being told that he's going to be tested on how long he can hold his breath while being chained underwater. In short, not very assured.

"'Just keep 'em busy,'" he repeats sarcastically. "Yeah, no sweat."

Squaring his shoulders, he strides down the hallway. Command is far different than he remembered, and not just because there's a pile of dismembered computers and mangled metal where the computer terminals used to be. All the people he'd come to know well are assembled stiffly on the ground, and though he'd only before seen one demon, he can instantly determine which transgenics drew the short straw.

"Aww," he says in a voice full of false nonchalance, "somebody throw a party without me?"

* * *

Both Max and Meg's heads snap towards the door as they hear Alec's apparently unperturbed voice. Max can't help but feel immense relief, even though he's just one man facing a small army of demons. Her mind starts up again, thinking of possible ways this could go down in their favor. She knows Alec's doing—or had done—the same thing, because getting out of jams is just what he _does_. Granted, he usually needs her to save him, but he more often than not at least is _thinking_ of a plan.

Meg grabs Max's upper arm tight enough to cut off circulation, and places the gun back to her head. They walk out the door and instantly attention is turned from Alec to them. Max sees equal relief in his face—albeit admirably concealed—and the smallest of smiles. "Hey, Maxie," he says. She didn't realize how much she'd missed his smartass tone until now, when it might actually rescue them all. "If you wanted to see me, all you had to do was ask. You didn't have to orchestrate this whole circus."

Max feels Meg getting annoyed, and hopes that she's the kind of person—demon—who gets sloppy when frustrated, rather than trigger-happy. Meg narrows her eyes as she looks at Alec. "Where is Dean?"

"Oh. Yeah, him," Alec says calmly, his voice deceptively casual. "He couldn't make it. Previous engagement. You wouldn't _believe_ how popular a dead guy come back to life can be."

"Shut up," Meg growls. "Or I'll put a bullet through her brain."

Max sees the tiniest glimmer of anxiety tighten Alec's stance, but he doesn't react more than that. "No you won't," he says. "You don't want Max, you don't want any of the transgenics or transhumans. You want me, and you want Dean." Meg stays silent, and Alec chuckles. "Oh come on, you thought I was that stupid? Your plan is ridiculous. I can see right through it."

"Is that so?" Meg counters, raising her eyebrows.

Alec smirks. "Definitely," he replies. "You have a stupid, petty personal vendetta against Dean because he sent you to Hell—that's gotta sting a little. Then _he_ went to Hell and _still_ you couldn't beat him. So you figure now that he can die again, you'll kill him once and for all. And for good measure, you'll kill the dude who shares his DNA. But…well, I guess you can save the bullet you'd hoped could be used on Sam."

He doesn't say it outright, but no one in the room is under pretense as to what he means. A somber atmosphere passes over everyone (excluding the demons), even though they didn't know Sam. Some didn't even know he existed, but each knows what family means, especially how much family means to Ordinaries. And the few who were aware of the Winchesters before Dean arrived know how much they in particular relied on each other.

Max closes her eyes for a couple moments, silently cursing everyone and everything from here to eternity. Although it does beg her the question as to how Dean took it. For that matter, what happened to him.

"One Winchester and one freak of nature to go, then," Meg sneers. "Fabulous."

Alec shakes his head. "Nah," he objects. "I'd like to think I'm enough a pain in the ass to be considered a Winchester myself, eh, Maxie?"

Max shrugs. "With your ego, I'd say you'd fit right in."

"Enough!" Meg snaps. "_Where's Dean_?"

Alec throws up his hands. "Jesus, you demons are so fucking impatient," he says. "Dean's long gone. If I'm not mistaken, he's about to pay our mutual buddy White a visit." Meg's eyes flare black, and her grip around the gun constricts. "Yeah, I know. Bummer, right? The way I see it, you got two options, bitch: You try and off Dean but leave me to exorcise every one of your minions here, or you stay and let Dean come to you."

"You're lying," says Meg, her eyes still coal black.

"Nope," Alec replies. "Sent your pal Ruby back to where she belongs with fifty words of Latin. It was oddly invigorating."

Meg laughs, "Ruby's no friend of mine."

"Whatever," Alec says. "Which one you gonna choose?"

Meg's face twitches, and Alec tries to contain his distress at how _creepy_ it is to see the pure wickedness on Kalinda's otherwise innocent and pretty features. "Sit," she commands.

"I prefer to stand, if you—"

In an instant, Meg moves the gun from Max's head to point at Alec, and shoots. The bullet misses his head by a fraction of an inch, but no one knows the miss as anything but intentional. "I said _sit_."

Alec promptly does as she said. "All righty, then," he says. "Sitting it is."

Meg proceeds to shove Max down onto the hard stone, and despite the fact that she's now absent a direct hostage, the malice seeping through her every pore is all too evident.

"I hope you know what you're doing," Max whispers to her second-in-command, sitting up gingerly.

Alec quirks a grin. "'Course I do," he murmurs.

"Chance of success?"

"Twenty, thirty percent."

Max groans. "Great."

* * *

Trinity feels less and less sure about her plan as she walks further from Terminal City, which is somewhat remarkable, bearing that that she was never all that sure in the first place. The last time she'd had this much pressure put on her was…well, when she'd fucked with Alec's head. The symmetry isn't lost on her at the fact that she's now going to fuck with Alec's double's head. If she's completely honest, however, she thinks she's going to hate the latter even more than the former, which is saying a hell of a lot.

Worse still, she's never done what she's about to do. She'd pulled things from people's brains many times before, but she's never tried to dredge them forth. Not _implant_, per se, but instead force memories. She's not sure it'll even work, let alone whether it'll make Dean better or worse. And since she's not really wired to be an optimist, she can't help but think that if she makes even one mistake, she's dooming them all.

When the long black car finally comes into view, she's hit with a tidal wave of emotion, ranging from one end of the spectrum to the other. She swallows, steeling herself against the unexpected onslaught, and walks a few yards closer.

Dean is lying on the Impala's hood, eyes staring up at the gray sky like he can find meaning from it. Denial is coming off him in torrents, undercut by longing, loss, abhorrence, and anguish. All of which she'd felt before, but never in such raw quantity. She'd known Dean would be a harder subject than those she'd had before, but she hadn't counted on just quite how _much_ harder.

"Dean," she says, attempting to once again pull herself together. She knows the costs if she doesn't.

Dean turns his head toward her, and then languidly sits up. "This is a nice surprise," he says. (Even his _voice_ is sown with refusal to accept reality, she painfully observes.) "Demons aren't usually this attractive."

"I'm not a demon," Trinity says. "Everything Alec told you is the truth. You're not in Hell anymore, Dean Winchester. Sam is dead, and my people and I are all in grave danger, courtesy of a demon you know very well. We need your help."

"Oh, Christ," Dean scoffs. "Not this shit again."

Trinity really doesn't have time or patience for the gentle approach she knows this kind of thing _should_ take. She walks over to him and, grabbing his shirt collar, pulls him down off the roof of the car ungracefully and slams him against the door, his feet finding purchase on the debris-laden ground at the last moment.

"I'm sorry," she says. "There's no other way to do this. We need you. You're our only hope."

Dean frowns, but before he can say or do anything, Trinity places her hands on either side of his head, like she had Dix's, and shuts her eyes. She feels Dean's memories and thoughts—both repressed and free—bubbling to the surface like those had in so many others, but instead of copying them into her own knowledge, she focuses on amplifying them and shooting them back into Dean's conscious. As they come forth in dizzyingly agonizing fervor, she forces herself not to drop the connection.

_Cassette tapes, disparaging annoyance. A smarmy smile._

_Childish pranks. Glue, a spoon, beer._

_Getups. "We are so screwed."_

_Bad, off-tune singing. Air tense with impending death._

_A graveyard, a broken wrist, a promise of healing._

_Laughter, from better times, from times _before_._

_A body gray, dead. A kindred spirit alive, but in physicality only._

_The body once more animated. Both animated. Sitting on a hood._

_A graveled crossroads, a dilapidated bar._

_A carefree driver. One perpetually worried and annoyed. Both at home._

"_It's my turn to drive."_

_Tossed keys—a passing of the torch._

_A desperate, grateful, loving hug._

_Family. Brothers. Once upon a time._

Both Trinity and Dean come out of the link with fast and harsh breaths, reeling. Trinity would have swirled up more memories, but she simply couldn't handle it. They were too powerful, too vigorous, too painful, even if she hadn't magnified them. She blinks rapidly, trying to get her head back in the game.

She almost wishes she didn't have to look at Dean. His hands are scraping against the side of the Impala, his nails digging into the paint, and there's one sole tear falling down his cheek. She didn't realize until just this moment that if the process was this intense for her, a transgenic, then it must have been unbearable for Dean, an Ordinary.

She puts her palms on his face, one on each side, but this time there's no power emitted. She angles his head and he wearily drags his eyes over to hauntingly rest on hers.

"Dean," she whispers. "Please."

His gaze is clear, but dead. There's no longer denial, simply depressed, morbid, I-beg-you-to-end-my-misery anguish. She knows vaguely that it's necessary, that she _has_ to do this, that to save the all, you must sacrifice the one, but she'll be damned if she doesn't regret what she'd just done.

"You're our only hope," she repeats.

"I can't." Dean's words are so brokenly quiet that she almost doesn't catch them. "I can't. You can't."

Trinity closes her eyes and takes a deep breath before laboriously opening them again. "Dean, if you do this for me, for us, I swear to you I will do whatever you wish. Send you to a better place, let you walk away, wipe your mind, anything. I promise. Just please help."

Dean's hands ball into fists, and Trinity can damn near almost see him piece together just enough of himself to function. But he's held together by old superglue, the kind that looks solid but can crumble at any moment, leaving that precious vase in hundreds of pieces once more.

"What do I need to do?" he asks, in the same near-silent voice as before.

She tells him, each syllable like a knife to her heart. After she's finished, he gives her a tiny nod, and as if on autopilot, shuffles to the driver's door and gets behind the wheel. She knows the only reason he's willing ("willing" being a very generous term) to do this at all is because there's the promise of salvation, of _peace_ if he completes the task she asked of him.

Her own task far from over, she watches as the lights of the Impala disappear around the corner, and turns around, heading back towards Terminal City and hoping that when she gets there, she won't find a room full of blood and death.


	37. Chapter XXXVI: Victim of a Dream

A/N: Same stuff applies as in the first chapter. Oh, and unfortunately I neither own _Supernatural_ nor _Dark Angel_. Just this.

A/N part two: Specific episodes of _Supernatural_ mentioned are: "Bloodlust," "Crossroad Blues," "Born Under a Bad Sign," "All Hell Breaks Loose, Parts I and II," and kind of "Swan Song." Specific episodes of _Dark Angel_ mentioned are: none.

* * *

**Of Desire and the Status Quo**

_**Chapter XXXVI: Victim of a Dream and a Memory

* * *

**_

Dean Winchester is not a man easily fooled, and he is not one for baseless hope. He's a realist, many times a fatalist, and it's worked in his favor countless times thus far. Always having that niggling thought in the back of his mind that the hot waitress he's taking on a date could be an ugly-ass succubus had proven to be incredibly beneficial (if, at times, annoying as hell).

He also hadn't thought he'd be one of the people who could fall victim to a psychotic break or such intense denial that he, in effect, created a different reality for himself. After Sam had…after _Sam_, he hadn't realized that he'd been so soul-shattered that he'd rather believe he was still in the physical Hell than live in the real world. He had legitimately thought he was, for that matter. He'd thought Alec was just another character in an unusually elaborate mind game of some particularly crafty demon, and that even though he'd discovered it was a trick, they'd kept him in that alternate reality.

Sure, he'd had the occasional thought that maybe reality could actually be worse than Hell, but he'd quickly jumped off that line of thinking. Hell's denizens had killed Sam before right in front of his eyes, and it'd always been a machination. Why should it be any different now? Sure, it was inventive to have him pretend to somehow escape from Hell (convenient that they never addressed _how_ he got out) and then to find someone who looked exactly like him and be some weird genetic hybrid thing on top of it, but if there's one thing of which he's never accused the demons that orchestrated his previous head stunts, it's being uncreative.

It'd certainly all _felt_ real (that damn shoulder thing especially), but that was nothing new, either. He'd gone through that agonizingly firsthand. He'd been initially gutted when Sam was stabbed, but then, he'd always been gutted when he'd seen Sam get killed in various ways in the previous alternate realities. He'd never had Ruby in those (evidently she's pretty unpopular Down There), but hey, everyone's got to have _one_ fan.

He was a little perturbed that they hadn't let him out already, because it wasn't like he wasn't privy to what was really going on here, but he was also a little curious as to what they thought they were accomplishing by continuing to pretend like the wool was still over his eyes. But to be fair, demons have never been known to be logical.

He told himself not to be pissed when Alec drove his Impala, because really, it wasn't technically _his_, just a figment, and when Alec got them back to the shithole of a "city" he lived in and disappeared into the compound, he'd considered bailing. But, he'd rationalized, what would that do? It wasn't like taking the car and leaving would actually _get_ him somewhere. These kinds of worlds only had a set distance, only allowed him to go as far as they wanted, so he might as well just ride it out. He'd then climbed on top of his beloved car (no, an _image_ of his beloved car) and stared up at the remarkably accurate Seattle sky, just waiting for the stupid illusion to be over.

He did have to commend the demons, however, for having one of their characters be incredibly attractive. He didn't know her name, but her thick dark hair, startlingly blue eyes, and _gorgeous_ figure, not to mention the catlike grace with which she walked, didn't go unnoticed.

Of course, it was ruined when she started to act like the so-called Alec by attempting to convince him that this imaginary world was actually for real, but in his experience, good things never do last anyway.

And when she'd told him with sincerity in her eyes that he was the last hope of her race, he'd not believed her. "Last hope," please. Melodramatic much? He was just one guy. Even if he weren't in Hell, it wasn't like he could save an entire population all by himself.

Then she'd apologized and placed her hands on either side of his head, and though if he were still on Earth he'd shrug them off and look at her like she's crazy, he allowed it with an internal sigh. He'd learned long ago that the only thing to do was wait until these alternate worlds hit the end of their line. There was no use in trying to fight it. The demons liked to watch him struggle like a worm on a hook, so by just sitting tight, ultimately they'd give up and try a new tack.

What happened then was something that in a million years, a million years of torture and inventive mind fucks, he would not have expected.

His head was bombarded with memories and feelings and pain, things he'd thought he'd long ago repressed. Of Sam dying back in Cold Oak, and Sam hating on his cassette tape collection. Of Sam wanting to drive. Of a crossroads at which Dean nearly sold his soul for his father's. Of a trillion other recollections and accompanying sensations, many of which there was no way a demon could know, could seduce to the surface. His mind was the one thing he'd been able to keep hold of and not be infiltrated, much as the demons tried. (And believe you him, they tried.)

When it finally, blissfully ended, he felt like his heart was imploding on itself, like he'd microwaved his insides and set fire to his brain. Like…like he'd felt when Jake—asshole—killed his little brother and he'd spent three days standing, staring, at the gray verisimilitude of Sam, until he couldn't handle it anymore and consorted for a fateful moment with a demon.

He looked into the transgenic's eyes, saw similar but not identical feelings in her face as he felt. There was _no way_ she could be suffering exactly what he was, but there was a haunting in her gaze that hadn't been there before, a harsh understanding. Every cell in his body was trying to band together to tell him that that didn't change anything, that he was still in a demonic fabrication. And for a second, they succeeded.

But he kept looking into the transgenic's eyes, and kept seeing what he felt inside him. The memories were real, the pain was real, that couldn't be faked. Not by demons, not by anyone. And that truth was worse than the thrashing barrage of events from his past. A fuckload worse.

She'd put her hands once more on both sides of his face, and he flinched, expecting her to invade his mind again, but she didn't. It was just her slightly chilled touch on his stubbled cheeks and with as much caring as she was able, given the rawness from which she was still reeling.

"Dean," she'd whispered. "Please. You're our only hope."

His throat felt like sandpaper and it sent very obstinate _stop doing that_ messages to his pain receptors as he spoke, and he had no idea how he managed to overcome them. "I can't," he'd replied. "I can't. You can't."

She'd looked like she wanted nothing better to do than lie down and wish she'd never wrestled his memories up, like her entire being resented itself for doing so. But still, she begged, "Dean, if you do this for me, for us, I swear to you I will do whatever you wish. Send you to a better place, let you walk away, wipe your mind, anything. I promise. Just please help."

It was the promise of being sent…wherever that had him decide. He knew in his heart that Sam went to Heaven, no way could the cosmos not let him in, regardless of whatever he may have done, and if he could have the same shot, then Christ, he'd take it. That saying "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven" was total bullshit, as far as he was concerned. He'd rather be Heaven's bitch and be with Sam than be Satan's right hand man and have Sam be worlds away (literally) from him forever.

And if humoring this transgenic and saving her people was the way to do it, well. It was a no-brainer. A no-brainer that hurt more than he'd ever thought was conceivable even if only in nightmares, but one nonetheless. He'd made his brother a promise a long, long time ago, back before Sam could remember, a promise to always be by his brother's side and protect him from all the evil in the world. He'd failed on the second part, but he wasn't going to on the first. He wouldn't. He couldn't.

So he'd agreed to the woman's pleas. "What do I need to do?" he'd asked, already in the frame of mind that he was _so fucking close_ to being saved, to have Sam back, that so help him, he could overcome this last hurdle if it meant being granted salvation and _peace_.

She'd looked as relieved as…well, as if he'd just promised to rescue her people, and told him exactly what he had to do, where he had to go, what she was going to do, everything. She'd warned him that it'd be dangerous, but that he'd be the hero, and honestly, but truthfully, he couldn't care less about heroics. It didn't matter to him whether he died at the hands of some human—_mostly_ human—psychopath or at the hands of the beautiful woman in front of him, so long as Heaven and Sam was his destination. All the better if he managed to save her and her people in the process.

He gave her a tiny nod, and got into the driver's seat of the Impala like he'd done since he was eighteen, the worn leather and imprinted steering wheel taken good care of by Sam feeling blessedly familiar. He'd reversed and eased out of the alleyway, the transgenic's directions simple to follow. He'd glanced at her through the rearview, saw her struggle to bring up a mask of _I'm fine_, an action he'd had decades of practice with.

And now, he drives down a deserted road supposedly leading to some abandoned state park at the center of which lies a bunker home to some guy apparently named Ames White who wants, surprise, world domination. The transgenic's knowledge wasn't unlimited, but Dean'd gone on less before.

He parks a reasonable distance away, because as much as he loves his car, she does have a loud engine, and stealth mode isn't very effective if you let your enemy know where you are before you even see them.

The woods are dense, scattered sunlight making its way through the trees, but the gunmetal gray bunker is giant, like the guardian, the beacon, to Earth's version of the Devil's dwelling. He still has the pistol he'd nicked from the armory, an extra clip in his jacket, but as he looks at the compound, it feels hopelessly small.

Not that, he reminds himself, it really matters. Because again, he can't bring himself to give a shit whether he lives or dies.

Nearing the clearing, he sees security cameras and guards at exactly the points he'd choose, and decides this isn't going to be able to be done silently. There'd be carnage, and he wouldn't be shocked if he gets taken captive.

As predicted, the minute he steps into view there's some shouts, and he fires off a few rounds, hits a couple of the guards dead center in their foreheads, dodges the bullets sent at him. When his gun clicks empty, the spare magazine, too, he tosses them aside and holds up his hands in a motion of surrender. If Sam were here, he'd—no. Dean makes a promise right here and now that Sam is off-limits to even think about, not until his brother's standing next to him in Elysium, a long-suffering sigh and a "You're an idiot, Dean" as a loving greeting.

Seeing his face, two of the guards quickly exchange a look of confusion, before coming to their senses and each taking an arm, squeezing so tightly Dean's not entirely sure they won't break them clean off. He'd half-expected them to snap his neck on the spot (they hadn't been too shy about trying to riddle his body with lead), but surmises they have orders to do otherwise.

He allows himself to be dragged inside, and stays silent, solely because it makes it easier to memorize the bunker's layout. Sam may have once impressively been able to detail the way from their motel to a vampire's nest while concussed and blindfolded, but Dean's not too shabby himself. By the time they get to roughly the nucleus of the compound, Dean's got a suitably accurate blueprint of his location.

They stop outside of what Dean presumes to be some kind of office (cut him some slack, everything inside the damn place looks the same), and one of the goons not holding him enters. It's eerily quiet after the door shuts, and in the silence, Dean can't help the hunter inside of him wondering if the gorgeous transgenic and hers are hurt, or if they're dead, or if—

"Well, well, nice to see you again so soon," says the voice interrupting Dean's thoughts.

Dean looks up, only to see the guy who'd previously shot drug after drug into his system. Oh. He ponders briefly whether the transgenic had known Dean'd had a previous encounter with White, or if it's just a convenient perk. He decides it's not really pertinent.

"Can't say the same…White," Dean growls.

"It was brought to my attention not long ago that I made an error," says White conversationally. "It appears you are, in fact, the presumed dead Dean Winchester."

"Alive and kicking," Dean says flatly. "You know, for an evil mastermind, you sure suck at capturing your enemies. Next time, you might want to make sure you're nabbing the right guy. Just a tip."

White smiles blandly. "I'll keep that in mind." Then he reaches over and straightens the collar on Dean's jacket in a veneer of geniality. "Now, care to convince me why I shouldn't kill you?"

Dean chuckles, and reminds himself that he can't get himself axed just yet. Not without at least _trying_ otherwise. "Seems we have a mutual demonic playmate," he says. "And apparently my ass is desirable to it. But hey, if you want to piss it off…"

"Meg," White says fondly. "She's quite the motivator."

_Meg?_ Dean gapes internally. Well, _that_ he hadn't banked on. Somehow she'd gotten out the same time as he did? _Just when I thought I was all done with surprises._

However much he's astonished inside, though, he shows nothing on the outside, pretending that he'd known it was Meg all along. "That's one word for her," he says, thinking rather _un_fondly back to when she'd used his brother as a sadistic marionette. "I'd go with 'manipulative, soulless, ugly bitch' myself, but to each his own."

White purses his lips. "You didn't come all the way here to express your distaste," he remarks. "Why _are _you here? And don't even think about lying—I may not be able to kill you, but I'm guessing she'll have no issues with me inflicting a bit of torture."

This sends Dean into a fit of laughter. It takes a minute or two until he's able to regain enough control to respond, "Yeah, about that. You're talking to a guy who was in Hell—_Hell_—for over fifteen hundred years. Some choice dope ain't gonna break me."

"Pharmacological treatments are far from the worst I can do," says White levelly.

Dean is thoroughly unimpressed. "Why don't you try hamstringing?" he suggests. "Haven't had that in a while. Or maybe slow slicing. That was always fun."

White just regards him with an expression Dean can't quite decipher. Something between the same disgust as before, with a dash of amusement and…intrigue? "There's more to you than I thought, Winchester," says White. "Seems like you came out of Hell not much the worse for wear."

Dean grins, though it's not a normal one; one reminiscent of the Joker's would perhaps be more accurate. "It's actually Earth that's been pretty damn shitty, to be honest," he says. "Hell wasn't pleasant, but at least—" Dean stops himself, swallowing _that word_. "Anyway. You and I? Business to discuss." He looks at the Familiars holding him, and then adds, "Privately."

White, more out of curiosity than actual acceding, nods to his underlings, and they promptly release Dean. "I'd say so," he agrees.

With that, the Familiars depart, leaving the two men standing alone in the hall. White stands aside and gestures for Dean to enter the office from which he had been summoned, and then follows. He hadn't expected in the least to see Dean here—even if Meg had warned him that the man he'd previously tortured was not, in fact, a transgenic—but truth be, he's rather interested in what Dean has to say. Not so much because he's grown an affinity for him or anything as ludicrous, but because with each passing moment, he's thinking he might be able to sway Dean to his side.

From what he's seen and heard so far, Dean's more or less a restricted free agent. The abominations have made their bid. All White has to do is take Dean out for a test drive, and then up the price. He thinks Dean just might be worth it.

* * *

"Hey!"

Alec looks up from the uninteresting point on the floor he'd been staring at to see the very angry face of Zig. Well,_ technically_ Zig, anyhow. "What's up?" Alec asks, drawing on all his reserves to keep up the unruffled charade.

He can't afford to fall apart, to let the ruse splinter even the tiniest bit. Max, he's noticed, has held up pretty well, considering, but he can tell she's starting to lose it, and no way is he going to deprive T.C. of _both_ its leaders.

"That woman who came to get you," Zig says. "Where is she?"

Alec grins. "Oh, Trinity?" he asks rhetorically, chuckling. "She's gone. You demons are some of the stupidest things I've ever run across. You _actually_ thought she was possessed?" Switching his eyes to Meg, he motions to Zig as if he weren't even there and remarks, "Really, you should hire better help. 'Cause the guys you got now…well, hope you kept your receipt."

Meg regards Zig with repulsion. "I'm aware," she replies. "They were the only ones I could get on short notice."

"Yeah, no one wants to work for a chick who got her ass handed to her by meager humans," Alec taunts. "It's too bad your rep is totally shot. You'd be pretty badass otherwise."

Meg chooses not to rise to the bait, instead resumes her slow, hostile pacing. Max takes the opportunity to lean over to Alec and whisper, "Okay, so what's the plan? That totally foolproof, we-win-they-die plan?"

Alec hesitates, but knows that especially now, there can't be any such thing as need-to-know information. "Trinity's going to convince Dean to head off White—who is, we think, in league with Meg; awesome, right?—and then come back here to help us out. She should be coming in any time now to pull off a diversion so I can trap Meg with this weird symbol thing."

Max raises her eyebrows. "I see where you got your twenty, thirty percent estimate," she says miserably. "This is one of the worst plans I've ever heard."

Alec glares. "Oh, I'm so sorry, princess," he answers. "It was all I could come up with while hightailing it back from fucking Illinois with a guy on a mental bender, knowing all the while that you're—" He takes a deep breath, trying to calm himself. He won't do anyone any good strung out like this.

But Max, in a rare show of sympathy, simply nods. "All right, I'm sorry," she says. "I'm a little…stressed."

Had Alec been drinking something, he would have choked. "_You're_ sorry?" he exclaims. "Are you possessed, too? Better watch out, I know an exorcism."

Max rolls her eyes, and Alec restrains a smile. There's the Max he knows and tolerates. "Look, I just—" She trails off, uncertain.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Alec says. "Now can we get out of this increasingly uncomfortable conversation and focus on saving our lives?"

Max smiles. "Good idea."

Alec sends her a reciprocal grin, and a moment later, a quiet creak-thud causes both his and Max's heads to snap towards the hallway Alec had emerged from minutes before. Trinity comes walking out of the shadows, though as Alec takes her in, he can't help but think that some of those shadows took refuge under her eyes and in them.

He can't dwell much longer on what did or didn't happen with Dean, because she locks gazes with him and then nods. Zig looks at her, too, and frowns. "You…!"

Trinity takes a deep breath, hoping that she hadn't overestimated herself, and presses her fingers to her temples. Concentrating all her energies into scrambling minds—but only those tainted by evil—she feels her power edging out in warping tendrils, seeking their prey.

Alec and Max watch as each of the demons starts cringing, and then as the agony inside their brains increases, they scrabble at their heads, trying to get out what feels like millions of spiders crawling around inside, spinning webs and nipping at the gray matter.

Remembering that he actually has his own job to do, Alec jumps to his feet and rushes over to Meg, who, though not as debilitated as her minions, is sufficiently distracted. He pops open the spray paint top and, envisioning the symbol from the journal, quickly but accurately draws it with a diameter scarcely more than would contain Kalinda's body upright.

Once done, the mark gleaming up at him in bright orange, he shoves Meg into it. It's disconcerting—the momentum should have been strong enough to send her into the opposite wall, but as if the air had turned solid, her body stops right at the edge of the pentagram.

Knowing that he needs to leave Meg where she is for the time being, but also knowing that the other demons are fair game, he looks at Mole and Brannan. "Help me get these guys in Max's office—now!" he yells.

Every transgenic and transhuman had up to this point been staring open-mouthed at the proceedings, but Alec's commands leave no room for dispute. Mole, Brannan, and a surprisingly helpful Max each grab one of the possessed transgenics, leaving Alec to drag Zig. As he's making his way to Max's office, the demons still scraping at their hosts' heads in vain, he notices thick streams of red, viscous fluid coming from Trinity's nose, and her hands shaking in concentration. He makes a mental note to remember just how much he owes her.

Once he and the seven others are in the office, he shuts the door behind him. The door, he knows, will block out enough sound to where the exorcism Alec prepares himself to say wouldn't carry and affect Meg, which would ruin absolutely everything.

Brannan, being the strongest of present company, takes temporary hold of Zig while Alec gets the strange language straight once more. Clearing his throat, he recites:

"_Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica, in nomini et virtute Domini Nostri Jesu Christi, eradicare et effugare a Dei Ecclesia, ab animabus ad imaginem Dei conditis ac pretioso divini Agni sanguine redemptis._"

All at once, the possessed transgenics scream unearthly screams, their mouths wide in pain and fury. Oily black smoke comes pouring out, clouding and then finally shooting downwards, _way_ downwards.

The four transgenics' bodies turn into dead weight, and all slump to the ground, their captors caught off guard at the sudden limpness. Brannan immediately drops to his knees, checking pulses and respiration. He hangs his head in overwhelming relief when he receives both heart rate and breaths from each transgenic.

"We'll need Rade to check them out just in case," he says, his voice quiet.

Alec nods. "You should also let either of our other Psy Ops units know that they need to be ready in case they have to…" he halts for a second, trying to figure out how to vocalize his order.

Brannan, however, is already on the same wavelength. "Got it covered," he replies.

Alec then turns to Mole and says, "Get some help moving these guys to the training area. The mats aren't great, but I don't want to risk transporting them too far until Rade has the chance to look them over."

Mole, though usually one to combat Alec's every command no matter how mundane or rational, readily accepts it. "What about you?" he asks.

Alec looks at Max for a moment, then turns back to the lizard-man. "I'm gonna get everyone out of here, and then Max and I are gonna have a chat with our demon pal out there."

That said, all file out of Max's office, but as Brannan heads outside to brief Trinity's former colleagues, a thought suddenly comes to Alec, and he grabs the combat unit's arm.

"Hey, uh, watch your back," says Alec. "I didn't see any more demons when I came in here, but that doesn't mean there aren't any."

"Noted," replies Brannan. Doubly attentive to his surroundings now, he jogs out of sight.

Alec then turns, heading into the control center and seeing Mole already gathering a couple of transhumans to do as Alec had said. Max had evidently recruited Joshua to tell people to scram—in somewhat nicer terms—and though there are some objections, she merely releases her death glare, and they back off. Alec notices they don't go outside, just disseminate to other parts of the building, and he wonders obliquely what Max said to them.

He comes up behind her and puts a hand carefully, lightly, on her shoulder. She looks up at him, and for the first time, he sees bone-deep fatigue in her eyes. But there's also resolve, and it's enough to bolster him.

"All right, so we've—" He pauses when he realizes there's something missing. Rather, some_one_. "Where's Trinity?"

"I've got her," comes Rade's voice, near silent, from the medical bay. Sparing a cursory glance at the trapped Meg (just now coming out of her daze), they sprint over to the pseudo-hospital.

Trinity, they see, is on a gurney opposite the still-weak Dix, her face wan and her eyes staring unblinkingly up at the ceiling, still an intense blue, yet dulled somehow. Rade had wiped the blood from Trinity's nose, but the skin underneath is stained, and the shadows Alec'd glimpsed under her eyes are darker than ever, taking the appearance of deep bruises.

"Is she…?" Max ventures, biting her lip.

"She's alive. But I don't know how much I can do. The only thing that I can see physically wrong with her is the aftereffects of the burst capillaries in her nose and sclera. Everything else is up here," Rade says, tapping her head. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry," sighs Alec. "It isn't your fault."

Rade would like to rip them, everyone, a new one sheerly because she really, really wants to punch something (particularly would very much like to unleash on Meg, but she knows Meg is in Kalinda's body, and the poor girl has already been through enough without being subjected to Rade's well-known fury), but she knows she can't.

Eyes downcast, Alec turns away from Rade and Trinity, heading out to an equally, if not more so, undesirable situation. Max gazes at Trinity's prone body for a few more seconds, then follows Alec, leaving Rade to slide wearily down the wall, knuckles straining against skin. She _so_ did not sign up for this shit.

* * *

"I'll cut straight to the point," says Dean, leaning on one of the desks. "I know the fundamentals. Why you wanted to torture me because I happen to look like one of the transgenics who outsmarts you time and time again, hell, even why you got these 'roided guards to flank your bunker. What I don't get is why the fuck you resurrected me in the first place, and why you want to hook up with Meg. That's just signing your death warrant."

White tips his head to the side. Fascinating. "What is _your_ plan?" White asks instead of answering Dean's queries. "What is _your_ point of coming down here, risking your life, just to find out something you could probably—eventually—guess yourself anyway? You really owe those freaks of nature that much?"

"I don't owe anyone shit," Dean snaps. "But they're not freaks. Not any more than me or anyone else. As for why I'm interested…well, let's just say it's to satisfy curiosity."

_More like I want to know exactly what the hell you did so I can get appropriately pissed_, Dean thinks to himself. God, if he'd just never gotten out of the Pit, all his heartache could've been prevented…

White merely smiles again.

"_Why_?" Dean yells. White, to his credit, doesn't flinch, but he does take in the more-than-homicidal look in Dean's eyes, and accurately guesses that though Dean was essentially hired by the transgenics, that doesn't mean he's unerringly towing the company line.

"All right," says White. "Those freaks are polluting the world. I need to rid it of them. Meg is just…a bonus. We could have done this execution without her, but a demon on our side is even better. You, on the other hand, were just…an unwanted side effect."

"Wait…" Dean says, staring dangerously at White. "You're saying that resurrecting Meg, resurrecting me…it was all an _accident_? How the fuck do you _accidentally_ resurrect a demon and a victim of Hell?"

White purses his lips, irritated. "It wasn't supposed to go down like that," he says defensively. "The Latin was purely a—"

Dean puts the puzzle together before White even gets the chance to finish. Suddenly, everything makes sense. He starts laughing once more, doubling over at the absurdity of it all, at how utterly _idiotic _White was. Is.

"Oh God, you're just—that is just classic," Dean chokes out.

"Beg your pardon?" White growls, trying and failing to not let Dean get under his skin.

Taking a long drag of air, Dean straightens and wipes a few stray tears from his eyes. "I'm sorry, it's just—wow," he says. "You really didn't realize?"

"Realize _what_?" White asks.

"That your hooded buddies in there were _possessed_," Dean chuckles.

"What?"

Dean sighs, still reveling in his amusement. "Some stray demons spotted a chance they could take. They fed on your stupidity and infiltrated your cronies. You don't know jackshit about Latin, which they took advantage of. They realized they could raise one of the more powerful demons and exploit your prejudice. But they weren't going to indulge your racism, _White_: they were going to annihilate _everyone_. You were just means to an end. With Meg at the helm, they figured they had a better than decent chance of turning the human race into dust. You simply helped them along. As for me, I'm guessing the demons possessing your lackeys weren't the smartest of the bunch and screwed up their little spell. Managed to bring me back to life along with Meg." _Fuckers…_

With each word of Dean's, White's anger escalates, to the point where his breathing is sporadic. Dean, naturally, is enjoying every moment. "You're lying," White hisses.

Dean gives him a half-smile. "Why would I lie?"

"Ah, no, of _course_ you wouldn't," White sneers. "You got a Get Out of Hell Free card."

Dean's smile fades. "Yeah, I should kill you just for that," he says.

White raises his eyebrows, surprised. "You're not happy to be out of Hell?" he inquires, crossing his arms, hands in tight fists.

Dean's eyes narrow, his jaw clenching. "Not really, no," he replies. Sure, he's glad to be rid of the constant abuse, but…all things considered…

"Huh," says White, pondering. He takes a step towards Dean and his gaze gains a tint of perspicacity. "Well, seeing as how we were both wronged, I have a proposition for you."

Dean rolls his eyes, but answers anyway, "Oh yeah? Why would I want to be in league with you for _anything_?"

"Rumor has it your brother's more than likely toast," says White.

Vision abruptly a red haze, Dean walks towards White and without hesitation punches him in the face, feeling the man's nose break under the force. White curses, but more out of reflex than anything else—after all, since altering his genetic makeup to make him feel virtually no pain, the blood spilling from his nostrils and the off-kilter bone is but a nuisance.

He glares at Dean. "Don't you _dare_ bring up m'brother, you son of a bitch," Dean snarls, his tone making it clear that socking White was a light—_very_ light—warning. "_Don't_."

White puts his thumb and forefinger on either side of his nose and twists, snapping it back into place. He shakes his head violently, clearing it, and pulls out a handkerchief from his breast pocket to wipe the blood from his face.

"Yes, well," he continues, "what I was trying to say is…suppose I could reunite you?"

Dean's fist remains rigid, and his face belies nothing. "Excuse me?"

"That's what you want most, is it not?" asks White. "You help me, I help you."

"What, by killing me?" Dean snorts. "I can do that myself, thanks very much."

"Not by killing you," replies White. "There is another way. A way you could get him back good as new."

White pauses, waiting for Dean to solve the equation. It takes him a minute, and then he comprehends the awful implication. "Are you suggesting you can _clone_ him?" Dean asks, astounded.

White shrugs. "Every one of those freaks has DNA from someone," he says. "I'm sure there's some DNA from your brother lying around; we've got a new project underway that, any day now, will have the means to clone people of any age you wish. You could have your little brother back. For good."

Dean stares at him. He feels like he's back at the crossroads, looking at the woman in the killer black dress, listening to her silver-tongued promises of bringing back his father. It had taken all his strength to refuse that time, and he knows he's weaker now. It's not his father this time. It's…it's _Sam_. In the back of his mind, he acknowledges that he's pathetically desperate to be even _thinking_ about accepting something as crazy as this, as getting a _clone_ of his little brother; it wouldn't be Sam, not really. But at the same time…

The consequences of the last time he made a deal like this are still horrifically vivid as he looks into White's slate gray eyes, and yet if White's telling the truth… Dean swallows, and then says in a whisper, "I'll think about it."

"Take all the time you need," says White, trying to hide his smile. _Hook, line, sinker._

Dean nods and, before he can collapse in hope, he swiftly throws open the door and strides out, passing the Familiars and finally breaking into a run. He makes it into the Impala and then rests his head on the steering wheel.

"Sammy…" he murmurs to himself, to his brother's body. "What am I supposed to do?"


	38. Chapter XXXVII: In Thy Nothing

A/N: Same stuff applies as in the first chapter. Oh, and unfortunately I neither own _Supernatural_ nor _Dark Angel_.

A/N part two: Specific episodes of _Supernatural_ mentioned are: "Everybody Loves a Clown," "Born Under a Bad Sign," "Devil's Trap," "All Hell Breaks Loose, Part II," "Jus In Bello," "No Rest for the Wicked," vaguely "Mystery Spot," and lines from "Pilot," "On the Head of a Pin," "The Rapture," and "Sympathy for the Devil." Specific episodes of _Dark Angel_ mentioned are: "The Berrisford Agenda."

* * *

**Of Desire and the Status Quo**

_**Chapter XXXVII: In Thy Nothing

* * *

**_

Dean can't decide whether he wants to run or stay inside his car forever, and it's then he realizes he has something he needs to do first. It's not something he wants to—by God, he'd rather die—but he knows that the alternative could be far, far worse. The woods would provide adequate cover, and an adequate source for…_that_.

He drives twenty minutes down the road, well out of view of White's bunker, and off-roads the Impala over rocks and dirt and fallen tree branches. Then he turns her off and walks around the back, opening the trunk. Sam had rearranged the back to look like John's truck once had, the weapons and other apparatuses in carefully cut foam, and while it hurts to see that level of order, it makes it easy to find a large machete. It's sharpened to cut a vamp's head clean from its torso, and it's exactly what he…what he needs.

He treks further into the forest and hacks off branches, picking up fallen logs on the way and cutting them into more manageable pieces. Trying to pretend that what he's doing isn't what it is, he builds the wood up high, setting longer and stronger pieces to stabilize the top, and a circle of rocks around the bottom to discourage spreading. It'd be the last thing he needs to start and be stuck in a forest fire.

His walk back is one of dread, more dread than when he'd done this to his father, than when he'd heard the clock chime twelve in New Harmony, more than when he'd been faced with having to do this last time. Then, he'd made a deal. Now…well, now he doubts any Crossroads Demon would want to even talk to him, let alone help him out.

He hesitates as he reaches his car, her sleek black body looking ominous for the first time ever. Taking a breath, he opens the back door, his heart stopping as he looks inside.

He'd known in the back of his mind that Alec had done this, had made it so he didn't have to—had also burned Ruby, which Dean reminds himself would probably be a good thing to thank him for—but it doesn't make it any less gut-wrenching.

Knowing he _has_ to do this, but feeling physically sick to his stomach, he shuts his eyes, trying to block out the pain. His chest constricted, he reaches in and pulls his brother into his arms. Sam's heavy, and though carrying him isn't something he's done on a _regular_ basis, he knows he can. Even if he's not as in-shape as he used to be.

Every step he takes away from the car and towards the crude pyre brings him back to torture sessions Downstairs, swords to every inch of exposed skin. As he lays Sam's body on the branches, he pulls down the top half of the moth-eaten motel blanket. Sam's face is gray, the few lines he'd gained on his face smooth, his floppy hair a mess. He looks like he's only sleeping, and Dean's sure if he pretended hard enough, he could sink back into the comfortable but false "reality" in his head. Saline again assaulting his eyes, he leans down and hugs Sam to his chest, willing with all he has that Sam will suddenly start breathing again, heart start beating again, expression start bitchfacing again.

As he starts to reluctantly pull away, he feels a bulge hit his arm and, frowning, he reaches inside Sam's jacket. His fingers close around cold metal—the butt of a gun; he'd know the shape anywhere.

Carefully, he pulls it out, and his eyes widen as he recognizes the ivory grip, the delicate etchings in the barrel. He hasn't seen this thing in…thirteen years. The fact that Sam had kept it, had _used_ it, when his whole life Sam had never really liked Dean's gun, makes his heart break even more.

Swallowing, he puts the gun in his waistband; though it was his to begin with, Sam using it makes it feel like it was his, too. And Dean would rather have something that would remind him of Sam than nothing at all. He looks down at Sam again, at the face that he'll forever see as his baby brother and not a man who'd been broken time and time again, and who'd turned to a woman—a _thing_—for the only kind of glue able to patch him together. As fractured as Dean is now, he knows that at least Sam can rest knowing that he'd rescued both his brother and Alec.

"Sammy," says Dean, trying and failing to get a hold on the shaking marring his voice. "I don't know what to do." He blinks, temporarily ridding himself of his blurry vision. He feels like he's back in Cold Oak, like he's back at the last time he talked to his dead brother. Only this time, there's salt, lighter fluid, and matches next to a pyre on which Sam lies. Dean takes a breath, wishing beyond everything that his brother would return to life.

"I just—I don't know what to do," he repeats. "These people, these transgenics, they're saying I'm the only one who can save them. And that Meg bitch, she wants to kill me. Then this White asshole is saying he can kind of bring you back…I need your help, Sam. More than ever. God, what I'd give to have you back…" He lets one tear, many tears, fall and clumsily brushes the bangs from Sam's eyes. "I know this White player's not being straight with me, I'm not stupid," he says. "But if there's a chance—"

He slowly, as if not of his own accord, raises the gun to his head, hands steady as they always are when they hold a firearm, as they always have been. He shuts his eyes, his hand on the trigger. All it'd take is one light tap, one short recoil, and his pain would be over. He could see his brother again, could leave all his hurt behind. One little tap. Just one. His finger tightens around the trigger, leaving only a mere millimeter or two until it would go off in a burst of light and heat, allowing Dean escape.

But then he slowly opens his eyes, ducking his head as he imagines what Sam would say.

_Dean, don't_, he'd admonish. _Don't play into what that guy wants. You know what you have to do. I'm gone, Dean, you have to accept that. You can't save me, but you _can_ save Alec. He needs you, Dean. You can't bring me back. I'll see you again, but right now, you have a job to do._

Dean sighs, Sam's voice clear as a bell inside his head, as if his spirit were right beside him. Dean doesn't look to see if it is; he doesn't want to even build up a little hope just to have it shut down again.

But he knows Sam's right. It tears him up inside, but he knows Sam's right. He already brought him unnaturally from the dead once—he can't do it again. Lowering the gun from his head with a heavy hand, he whispers, "Okay, Sammy. Okay."

Giving a final look at Sam's face, Dean slowly drapes the blanket back over it, sprinkles salt and gasoline over the pyre and his brother, and then drops a lit match on top of everything. The branches immediately catch to the licking flames, and Dean's heart splinters with each second, the inferno climbing higher as it consumes the flesh. He knows he's setting Sam completely to rest, but it doesn't help the overwhelming urge to put out the fire and find some way to resurrect him.

"I'm sorry, Sam," he says over and over, a dedicated litany of pain. "I'm so, so sorry."

He looks at the flames, as if in them he can see his brother's soul. He stands there until the daylight turns into darkness, the flames dying down, until all that's left of Sam is a pile of ashes. The breeze soon blows them away into the trees, up into the ether, and Dean thinks solemnly, _At least he's at peace_.

He looks again at the pistol in his hand, seeking answers. His eyes drag up to where White's bunker is, and he realizes what he has to do. What Sam would want him to do. Doing what the famed Orpheus couldn't, Dean turns around and doesn't look back. He knows he'll see Sam again. Alec's future is in the air, and Dean has a say about where it leads. He'd already failed to protect his brother—he isn't going to fail again. He _won't_.

He's not sure at what speed he goes to the bunker, nor what time it is, on autopilot more than anything else, but finds himself driving up, not bothering to hide the Impala this time; White is waiting for him, after all.

Pasting himself together with what might as well be old Elmer's, he approaches the bunker, looking the two Familiar guards in the eyes as they move their hands to their guns reflexively. Dean's determined glare lets them know in no uncertain terms that he's to see their boss. Now.

He's led through the bunker down the same path as before, though this time, White is in a different room, peering at various vials and some complicated DNA-like strands on a computer monitor. The Familiars lead Dean past the window and intend for him to wait outside the door, but he shrugs out of their grip and shoulders open the door.

White begins to berate the intruder, but then notices his customer is Dean, and merely smiles. "Excuse us, gentlemen," he says to the two other men in the room. They look annoyed, but ultimately, after switching off the monitor, exit, leaving White and Dean once again alone.

"All it will take is one piece of his genetic code," says White, trying to hide the greed in his eyes. "A strand of hair, skin cells from his clothes, anything. Undoubtedly, there is something in that car of yours that would contain—"

"Cram it with walnuts, ugly," Dean snaps, really _really_ not in the mood for games. White looks incensed for a moment, and then remembers he has to be calm and collected; Dean, he knows, is as skittish and yet dangerous as a captured tiger. "I'm declining your _generous_ offer. I want more than anything to have m'brother back, but I'm not turning him into some kind of freakish, manufactured replica. You bastards have already ruined enough lives by toying with DNA, you aren't going to have Sam."

White's mouth presses into a firm line, his displeasure nothing but blatant. "Perhaps you could use a little persuasion."

"I don't give a shit, whatever you're going to say," Dean says. White's snake oil salesman routine is over, far as Dean's concerned. "This is exactly the kind of thing that happened to m'brother when he fell for a demon's lies, it's exactly what happened to _me_ years back, and I'm an idiot for not realizing it until now. My brother and I sacrifice ourselves over and over because our weakest link is each other. But as much as it makes me want to die myself, he's in a better place. He deserves that. And I'm not going to drag him back to Earth just because I lost him before I even got an hour with him."

White's expression of simmering rage thinly veiled underneath Bad Guy Calm had held for a while, but as Dean started explaining his undeniable _Fuck you, I ain't doing this_, it'd started to fade—rapidly.

"I see," says White, his upset increasingly evident. "Well, it's unfortunate you say that."

Dean doesn't react, hardly not expecting this reaction from, as far as he can discern, a poor man's Mussolini. "Oh yeah? How's that?" he asks.

On cue, four Familiars burst through the door, snarling. Dean merely grins, and extracts his pistol from his jeans. Pointing it directly at White's forehead, he addresses the bodyguards, "You're going to let me walk out of here, unharmed. You're not going to follow me, and you're going to leave the transgenics alone."

White raises his eyebrows, giving Dean a simpering smile. "That's a tall order for a man facing five Familiars," he replies. "Though I admire your…tenacity."

"Mmm. I'm sure," says Dean. "But, see, even if you guys can't feel pain, you sure as hell can't will yourself to walk."

White continues to stare, still calling Dean on his bluff. "Put that down, Winchester," he says. "Put that down before you hurt yourself."

Dean chuckles and, having had enough of White's posturing, in the blink of an eye moves his gun from pointing at White's head to his kneecaps and fires twice. Dean's aim is as flawless as ever, and both of White's patellae shatter. He falls not of his own volition, blood leaking out from underneath his tailored suit. The Familiars immediately start to move menacingly towards Dean, but Dean ignores them, keeping his gaze on the panting, but not grimacing, White.

"Call off your dogs," growls Dean. "And do what I said. 'Cause even in Hell, I could still dream, and let me tell you: I've got a few ideas of just how exactly I can torture you. I didn't agree to torture souls Down There, but I've got no problem shooting your extremities to smithereens one by one. And the best part? If you touch me, you got a demon to answer to. Pick your poison."

The Familiars pause for a moment, looking at their master. White's nostrils flare, his jaw clenching as he looks at Dean, eyes spitting in rage. He sees nothing in Dean's deadly expression to imply that he's anything but truthful in his threat, and, apparently valuing his life over anything else, nods nearly imperceptibly.

The Familiars cursorily glance at each other, confused, but then back down. "You're different than I thought," White bites out. "Wouldn't have pegged you as one to swear your loyalty to a group of defect monstrosities."

Dean shrugs. "First thing you should know, White, is that people tend to screw themselves when they make assumptions about me," he says. "And as for the transgenics, they're a million times more human than you are. At least they're trying to make a life for themselves despite the shit they got to deal with. At least they're not so fucking _moronic_ as to resurrect and make a deal with a demon for something as monumentally _stupid_ as a racist apocalypse. And that's exactly why you're going to let them be. You're going to get the fuck away from them, and stay there. Oh, and a bit of advice? Next time you're in league with people who know Latin, make sure you're actually aware of what they're saying. Otherwise…shit like this happens."

"What are _you_ going to do?" White asks, trying futilely to stand on his busted knees.

"Me?" Dean repeats. "Not quite sure yet. But I've got an endgame."

White looks mildly intrigued, but acknowledges that even if Dean did know exactly what he's going to do, he wouldn't tell him. "Too bad," White muses. "You really would have made a great Lieutenant. Otto's wearing out his welcome."

Dean laughs again, then re-aims his gun. White narrows his eyes at the silver barrel. "Just a little insurance," says Dean flippantly.

With another light tap on the trigger, he shoots White dead center in the chest. Blood gurgles from the hole, the sternum broken, his heart very narrowly missed. White can't manage to speak, but Dean doesn't intend to converse with him anymore anyway.

Instead, he turns to the Familiar nearest him. "For the record?" he asks rhetorically. "I don't miss unless it's on purpose. I hear anything about any of you fucking with the transgenics, make no mistake: I'll put the next bullet between his eyes. We clear?"

Neither the Familiars nor White answer, but Dean sees in their faces that they don't intend to do anything but follow what he said. Undoubtedly they would like to, but Dean's threat had made a noticeable impact.

Bestowing them with a last smirk, Dean hustles out, making tracks towards the Impala and heading it back towards Terminal City. He'd wanted to kill White in the most gruesome way possible, he really did, but he knows it's not his job. White isn't his adversary—he's Max and Alec's, the transgenics', and he knows they have to deal with the guy, not him. (Though, of course, that doesn't mean he can't leave him with a few lead reminders of just how close he did come to dying.)

He knows he hasn't got long before he has to do something, to save the transgenics, but he's made life-or-death decisions in less time than it'll take to drive from the bunker to Seattle. Plus, this time, he has more incentive: he has to avenge his brother.

* * *

It takes Meg a good few minutes to shake off Trinity's mind scramble, but once she does, it's plain as day that she's even more pissed than before. Fortunately, Alec thinks, the journal wasn't lying about the effectiveness of the devil's trap. "Great, you freaks got me," Meg observes distastefully, trying nonetheless in vain to get out. "What exactly do you plan to do now?"

Alec shrugs. "Whatever we like," he answers. In truth, he's trying to figure that part out. Trinity had said to wait for Dean, but for how long? Alec knows White's penchant for enticing people to his side; what with Dean's fatalist attitude, would he switch teams?

"Dean's on his way," answers Max with a hateful smile. "He should have fun with you."

"Ah, Dean," Meg reminisces. "Always the messiah."

Alec rolls his eyes and turns away from her, feeling a tightness in his shoulders that is starting to edge into a headache. He glances perfunctorily at Max before walking away from the demon and heading towards her office. He stops, however, once he's out of eyesight and sits down against the wall, leaning his head back. He'd been running on adrenaline ever since Max's SOS phone call, and it's quickly receding, leaving fatigue and a quick temper in its wake. He feels like he needs a break now more than ever, and yet knows that that's just not in the cards right now.

A few moments later, he hears soft footfalls down the hallway, and knows them immediately to be Max's. She stops a couple feet away from him. "You, uh…you okay?" she asks awkwardly, looking down at him.

He chuckles, not meeting her eyes. "Peachy," he replies. "I've got a clone—sorta—out there talking to White and who, by the way, has a tenuous at best allegiance to us, not to mention a _demon_ trapped in our command center, three of our own possibly irreparably wounded, and a day ago I had to burn a girl's body, all because some Hellspawn decided to fuck her over."

"You—wait, what?" Max asks. She'd missed _that_ memo.

"Never mind," Alec says, not wanting to get into it right now. Max must see the exhaustion in his face, because she doesn't press the matter (yet, anyway). He looks up at her then, her brown eyes both concerned and holding the same tiredness as his own. "I'm just—this is way above my pay grade."

"You're tellin' me," Max agrees, sitting down next to him. "I gotta say, this waiting around thing? Not my style."

Alec simply laughs.

* * *

Dean drives towards Terminal City distractedly, guiding the Impala around the dark curves leading out of the former state park, and then through downtown, feeble lights bouncing off the black hood.

He finds the alley leading into the command center (or so he'd gathered from where Trinity had disappeared into) and stops, shutting off the engine. He sits there for a short while, staring out the windshield aimlessly.

He'd been thinking of ways to solve this whole mess on the way over, of how he'd both save the transgenics and not completely fuck it up. For Sam, as it's always been. Always Sam.

It wasn't until he replayed his and White's conversation in his mind, what he himself had said, that he realized what might work. He still isn't a hundred percent, even now that he's gone over it in his head a dozen times, but considering he's been unable to think of any other options, it's the most viable one he's got.

Letting out a heavy breath, he gets out of the car, walking towards the transgenics' haven. There's no door, just a window cracked the slightest bit, and he maneuvers himself through it, landing soundlessly on the ground below. He follows the hallway, and then halts as he sees two figures sitting against the wall, both in various states of listlessness.

They glance up when they hear his approach, and then quickly stand, stark relief on their faces. He tries not to be offended that they'd so clearly thought he'd double-cross them. Okay, so maybe he'd briefly considered it, but still. It's a little insulting.

"Dean!" Alec exclaims. He looks like he wants to say something more, but doesn't go through with it.

Max, on the other hand, picks up where he'd left off. "What happened?" she asks.

"You, uh, you won't have to deal with that supremacist son of a bitch anymore," Dean answers. "Well, not if he knows what's good for him."

Max and Alec give matching frowns, and Alec furthers, "Did you…kill him?"

"No," Dean answers simply. "I was going to, I was, but I figured if anyone should have that pleasure, it'd be you. He's your enemy, not mine."

Alec's not entirely positive whether to be happy about that or not. He does choose, however, not to insist on knowing exactly what went down at the bunker; Dean may have not killed him, but if Alec's suspicions are right, White didn't quite escape the confrontation unscathed. That's good enough for him for the time being.

"Please tell me you have a solution for our problem here," Alec says, disliking how much he—and the rest of T.C.—is relying on Dean, but knowing they don't really have a choice in the matter.

Dean doesn't answer right away, just strides down the rest of the hallway and pauses at the end, where it opens up into Command. Meg isn't far, her back currently facing him, and he notes the devil's trap is precisely drawn. It pains him a little that they all are now exposed to his world, but he has a shrewd feeling they'll come to terms with it eventually.

"I know what to do," Dean says, looking at Meg and not at Alec or Max.

At that moment, Mole notices the three come into sight, and tromps over from where he'd been guarding Meg. He observes Dean inscrutably, readjusting his hold on his shotgun.

"What's our play?" he asks.

Alec doesn't know what Dean's planning, but from the look in the man's eyes, it's not good. Ignoring Mole, he snaps to Dean, "I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say whatever you're thinking, no. We'll find another way."

Dean then turns to him and laughs. "There _is_ no other way," he says.

"What's your plan?" Mole repeats gruffly, ever the battle strategist. He's getting the same sense of foreboding that Alec has, but is without the strong personal connection. More than that, he can see there's no changing Dean's mind.

Dean looks at Mole, looking almost grateful that there's one person in his vicinity who's not going to try and object. "Meg can possess me," Dean reveals solemnly, continuing at Alec's outcry, "I'm stronger than her, I can stay conscious."

"Yeah? _Then_ what?" Max yelps.

"Then I kill her," says Dean. "From the inside out."

Mole stays quiet, stoic, even though his mind is unintentionally running rampant with thoughts of _There has to be another way, there has to be._ It isn't like he _likes_ Dean or anything, but he's seen how attached Max and Alec are to the guy, and Terminal City can't afford to have its two leaders out of commission. Mole could carry it for a little while, but not indefinitely.

"No," seethes Alec. "No. No fucking way. We'll figure something else out. We have to."

Dean gives him a sad smile. "That was my philosophy, too, Alec," he says. "Look where it got me. Hell, and a dead brother."

"But—I mean, can't you just—can't you exorcise Meg and then…" Alec stops himself, swallowing back his desperation.

"She'd get out, somehow," Dean predicts. "And I can't stay here. I'm sorry."

"Then what are we supposed to do?" Max inputs, standing by her Second in both proximity and conviction. "We have this knowledge about demons and Hell and now White's shot up—we can't tackle it ourselves."

Dean laughs. "Y'all were doing just fine before I came along," he says. "I'm not a transgenic, I don't belong here."

Cutting off his superiors' continued protests, Mole steps forward. "What do you need?" he asks Dean. He feels Max and Alec's gazes of betrayal at the back of his head, but he diligently disregards them.

Dean studies the lizard-man appreciatively. "Nothing," he replies. "But you'll need to get some people ready to take the girl Meg's possessing to a hospital. I don't think Meg's done anything fatal to her, but she'll need some R and R, and a hell of a lot of therapy."

"Damen and Shane can do that," Mole answers. "We've got a van they can take, and there's a doctor at the hospital who's helped us a few times before."

"Carr," Dean fills in, remembering the man who'd tended to his shoulder. Mole nods. "Good. Let them know what's up. But don't tell the doc about the demons—the less people that know about this world the better, no matter how trustworthy they are. Just—I don't know, make something up."

Mole nods his acquiescence again, then heads out to find Damen and Shane to update them. As Dean turns to Max and Alec, his level of surprise remains; he hadn't anticipated them wanting him to stick around, he really hadn't. He briefly does contemplate staying, at least for a little while, but knows that's not remotely in the cards. Even if Sam weren't, effectually, his purpose in life, he knows he wouldn't fit in with the transgenics. Not completely. And he doesn't want to assimilate into a group of people who would constantly look at him like he's an outsider. Especially since that's exactly what he'd be, what he is.

Turning away from the two, Dean walks over to the devil's trap, to Meg. He smiles at her, more than ready to kill. "Go ahead," Meg sneers, looking absolutely delighted to see him. "Exorcise me. I'll just be back."

"Not this time, sister," he says. "This time I'll kill you."

She raises her eyebrows. "Oh yeah? I'd like to see you try," she says. "There isn't any incantation to kill a demon, and you don't have the Colt _or_ that bitch Ruby's knife. What exactly do you think you can do?"

Dean smiles again. "It's amazing how many useful things you can learn when you're torn apart twenty-four/seven," he replies. "Evidently, your demon pals had a hard-on for making me explode. Of possessing me, then making my insides be on the outside."

Meg narrows her eyes, reading Dean's face. "That nifty little tattoo of yours'll say different," she comments. "Would've thought you remembered that."

Dean shrugs. "Another little gift," he says. He reaches up to his collar, pulls it down to expose his chest. Where his anti-possession tattoo once was, the one he and Sam had gotten long ago in order to prevent being ridden by evil, now lies a crisscrossing mess of scars. "They had the same genius idea you did, sweetheart. Carved it off, piece by piece. Then re-inked it, then carved it off. Then re-inked it, then…well, you get the picture. I've got knife scars, but nothing to stop me being possessed. Or, in this case, getting possessed on purpose."

"There's no incantation," Meg says again, gritting her teeth.

"Give it up," Dean says. "And say your last words."

"Well," says Meg, seeing her future is dark, "take your best shot."

Chuckling, Dean holds up a finger and then looks back at Max and Alec. Max's face and body are stiff, her eyes shiny, but there are no tears. Dean leans down to give her a short, awkward hug, and then turns to Alec. He holds out his hand, and after a beat, Alec shakes it, gripping hard.

"Take care of her, huh?" Dean says quietly, gesturing with his head towards Max. "I don't think she's as strong as she thinks."

Alec laughs. "I know," he replies. He looks down at the ground, and then back up to Dean. "I don't suppose I can talk you out of this."

"Sorry, kid," answers Dean. "You can't. I have to do this. Just, uh, do me a favor."

"Anything."

"Drench my body in salt and lighter fluid, and burn me to a crisp," says Dean. "I don't want there to be even the tiniest chance that my ass will haunt yours."

Alec looks stricken with the prospect—not with the haunting, but with the hunter's funeral. "Dean, no…I can't."

"Yes you can," replies Dean. "And you're going to."

Dean claps his double on the shoulder, then walks back over to Meg, staring her straight in the eyes. She looks like Kalinda, but Dean can see through the fake visage, through to the demon who'd once taken on his brother's form, who'd been exorcised one too many times.

Barely aware of Max beside him, Alec watches with clenched fists as Dean mutters a chant under his breath. With each successive word, Meg cringes and grunts, her essence being slowly, agonizingly ripped from Kalinda's body. She lets out an unearthly shriek, and an angry, wild black smoke comes spilling from Kalinda's mouth, the Latin causing it not to go back to Hell, but to beeline straight into Dean. Dean stumbles back a step, and his eyes darken to a sinister black. For a moment, Max and Alec think it didn't work, that Alec would have to quickly—_very_ quickly—exorcise the demon from Dean, but then the black dissipates and brightens into green as Dean gets a hold of Meg.

Blood starts to dribble from his nose as he recites the second part of the spell, and as it progresses, he has an increasingly harder time spitting out the words, the demon inside him both trying to wriggle free and prevent itself from being axed.

Dean grits out the last of the spell, and in an instant, there's a dull, pulsating orange from each rib, his eyes flashing black, then back to green, the process repeating itself until finally, _finally_, Dean screams and falls to the ground, more blood dripping from his nose, yet more falling from his mouth.

Max and Alec are vaguely aware of a stricken Damen and Shane carrying an unconscious Kalinda across Command to take her to the hospital, but are more focused on sprinting over to Dean, kneeling down beside him.

The spell hadn't killed him, but it's obvious to both transgenics that it had weakened him. "Weakened" being an immensely conservative estimate. "Dean…" Alec murmurs, putting a hand on Dean's shoulder.

Dean's eyes open slightly, dull underneath half-closed lids. He takes a breath, the rattling in his chest all too indicative of a punctured lung seemingly echoing throughout the room. He manages a barely-there smile, teeth stained red as he hazily looks between Max and Alec.

"She—She—She's dead," he whispers around gurgling in his throat. "F-For good."

"Dean," Alec pleads, attempting to stop his voice from cracking, "we—we can save you. We _can_."

"Probably," says Dean with difficulty. "B-But I can't—I can't let you do that."

He coughs, turning his head to avoid choking, and spits out an appalling amount of blood. He feels fluid seeping into his lungs, feels an odd suppressing, liquidy sensation throughout his body, knows it's internal bleeding and that his seconds are numbered. (To be honest, he's astounded he even survived the spell.)

"Rade can help you," Max says, her voice rough. "She's a miracle worker."

"This world is—it isn't for me," Dean replies, echoes of what he'd said before. "It's yours, I wasn't—I w-wasn't meant to—to come back. I'm s-supposed to—to die. Everyone's gotta go—for real—sometime."

"You're twenty-nine," Alec protests pathetically. "Dean, I—"

"D-Don't pansy up now," Dean interrupts, laugh-coughing again and feeling his broken ribs jostle. "No clone'a mine is gonna b-be a wuss."

"You don't wanna die, Dean," Max says, brushing her hair carelessly behind her ear. "Come on, Rade can fix you up…"

Dean's face morphs into a strangely placid smile, and neither transgenic knows why. Usually people dying an incredibly painful death don't smile, let alone _calmly_. "I do," Dean says. "My life on Earth was sh-shit, my time in H-Hell was, well, hell. Th-There's gotta be a Heaven, right? It can't be—not any worse than what I've g-gone through."

"You really believe in Heaven?" asks Alec, dubious. After what Manticore had made them endure, he finds it hard to trust in a higher power. Taking into account Dean's behavior, outlook on life, and experiences, he hadn't thought Dean believed in a higher power either.

Dean tries to shrug, and halfway manages it before collapsing again. "What've I got to lose?" he inquires. "Sammy's gone. He—He was the one thing keepin' me sane down in the P-Pit, now he's gone. I d-don't care if he went Dark Side, h-he was still m'brother. I—I think we did enough good in our lives to earn a ticket Upstairs. I'm—I'm just tired, man. I'm done. I am just _done_."

Alec's heard death more times than he cares to recall. He's even heard it in himself once. But he doesn't think he's ever heard it quite so desolate, accepting, _final_ as when from Dean's mouth.

Before now, Alec hadn't thought living could be contingent on one single factor, but perhaps for Dean it is, that factor being his only brother, his only relative, his _universe_. Alec, of course, doesn't have real brothers or sisters, and even though he'd give his life for most in T.C., he's not exactly living _for _them.

Granted, that doesn't mean he's willing to let Dean just _die_.

"I'm taking you to Rade," he proclaims again, swallowing. "You're gonna live through this, you have to."

"You try anything and I'll kick your ass, kid," Dean hisses through his teeth. Maybe it would have intimidated Alec before, but the diminished state Dean's in, coupled with Alec's panic, doesn't allow that. Dean seems to realize this the moment Alec does. "You're a good guy. And you've got a great thing going here," he continues, looking pointedly at Max (Alec tries not to notice that Dean's breaths are coming in shallower by the second), "but it's n-not right that I'm here. Please—I spent almost two thousand years hoping that S-Sammy would bust me out, then I find out he's g-gone off the reservation, then right when I could have him back, he dies. I can't live with that, I can't. I'll put a bullet through my own head if I have to, Alec, but-you've _gotta_ let me go. I need this."

Alec sees the desperation and determination in Dean's slowly darkening eyes, and knows resistance is futile, even in Dean's severely wounded form. He doesn't want him to give up, he _doesn't_, let alone like this, but he can see plain as day that even if Rade were able to patch him up, he'd wish he were dead anyway. Hell, Alec had felt like that before, the only thing causing him to keep breathing being a twisted, sadistic government facility shooting lasers into his brain.

"Dean, I—"

Heaving out a breathy chuckle, Dean touches Alec's arm. "Hey, no chick flick moments," he says lowly, and though the weight of the words is known only to Dean, Alec takes it for what it is.

"I, um…" Alec's at a loss of words. He's been around people dying, but in those situations, it tended to be a cut-your-losses kind of thing, not much sentimentality going on. He glances at Max briefly, whose mouth is pursed shut, like if she tried to speak, she'd break down. And if there's one thing he knows about her, it's that she doesn't break down. She just doesn't. Alec turns back to Dean. "Just—uh, thank you, I guess. For…I don't know. Everything."

Alec thinks he sees Dean shake a nod and a one-sided smirk, and then, as if his sluggish mind just realized something, he reaches into his jeans pocket and pulls out first car keys then, reaching around his back with a wince, his pistol. He holds them out to Alec with shaking hands, his eyes sharp. "Take care of 'er," he says, jingling the keys. "And d-don't you _dare_ lose my gun."

Alec looks down at the two items now loose in the palms of his hands. "Dean, I can't," he says quietly. "No. These are—I can't take these."

"My baby isn't going t-to sit there and rot," Dean hisses. "A-And this gun is more accurate'n any you've ever fired."

Alec doesn't doubt it, but accepting Dean's only possessions—sans his necklace, which remains around his neck—feels wrong. Blasphemous. "Dean, _no_," he persists.

Their staring match is interrupted by a shrill ring, coming from the telephone at the center of Command. Alec jolts a little, not expecting it. It gets half a ring more before Mole picks it up, and then he, to his credit hesitantly, makes his way over to his two superiors and Dean.

He holds the phone out to Max, annoyance on his face. "N-Not _now_," Max says, her words overemphasized, for precisely the reason Alec had guessed.

"It's the Ordinary," says Mole unhappily. "Lover boy."

Max closes her eyes, trying to focus herself enough to not sound like a wreck. She'd like nothing more than to ignore Logan, but she knows that he would just keep calling if she didn't answer. She reluctantly takes the phone, Mole scattering all too gladly.

She glances at Alec and Dean, and even though she hopelessly wants to stay, she knows that not only does Alec need this, but talking to Logan right next to both him and Dean? Not a good plan.

She gently touches the side of Dean's face, and then slowly gets to her feet, grazing her hand lightly across Alec's shoulder. "What?" Alec hears her grind out into the phone, before she walks out of earshot.

He looks down at Dean, sees Dean's eyes even duller than before, and grips the engraved metal of the gun barrel tight. "_Take them_," Dean implores, swallowing.

Alec feels like if he does so, it means he really won't be commandeering Rade to patch Dean up, and that's not really something he's ready to handle, but he also sees the blood continuing to drip from Dean's nose and mouth, his breaths coming in with a louder rattle, his body shutting down, and he finds he can't deny anything to the man.

"Okay," Alec whispers, setting the two items to the side. "Okay."

Dean smiles, and as Alec watches, the already feeble light in Dean's eyes fades, the little self-support he'd had vanishing, his head lolling against Alec's hand. Alec feels a catch in his own chest, and steadfastly refuses to acknowledge it. More accurately, he knows somewhere in the back of his mind that he's in shock. Staring down at Dean's body and not wanting to think of what is supposed to happen now—Dean's first request all too poignant in his brain—or how surreal it is to see his own face like…_that_, Alec resigns himself to a single tear.

"Break some angel hearts for me, dude," he says, his fingers fisted Dean's bloody shirt. "_Promise_."

Well. Dean is always up for a challenge.

* * *

Across Command, Max's eyes are trained on Alec and Dean, paying less than even half paying attention to what Logan's saying. "Sorry, what?" she asks, when Logan notes she hadn't responded to him.

"I said I found the link between Alec and Dean," he repeats.

Max frowns. "You did? When?"

She can hear Logan smiling through the phone, and hates it. "I coerced Sam—Dr. Carr—to help me, and we discovered that back in '98—"

"Logan, now's _really_ not the time," she interrupts, itching to go back over to Dean.

Logan pretends she didn't speak, just hurries on faster, "We don't know exactly for what reason, but back in August of '98, Dean went to this place called Synthesis Labs in Concord, New Hampshire. It's a sperm bank, Max."

"What?" she asks, now giving Logan a little more of her attention. "A sperm bank? How does that explain Alec?"

"Well, usually—I presume—those places are just a do-your-thing-then-leave, but we dug a little further into the history of the place, and apparently they were subcontracting for Manticore. Lydecker in specific. Essentially what they were doing was looking at potential candidates for the X-series project, which guys would produce the best genes. They recruited people, too, as you know, but this was easier, more efficient. I guess they decided Dean was a good source, took the DNA he'd…er…supplied, and used it for Ben and Alec."

Max hears Logan talking, hears his explanation, but right in front of her eyes, she sees Dean's body go limp, the blood that had been dribbling down his face slowly coming to a stop as his heart ceases beating. She sees Alec say something to him, and then just stare at his double, for lack of a better word catatonic. Max's vision abruptly starts blurring, and she blinks quickly to force it to subside.

"Well?" Logan asks.

"W-Well what?" chokes out Max.

"You going to tell Alec?" he continues expectantly. "He probably wants to know. Dean, too."

Max lets out a short, harsh laugh, hating how Logan sounds _happy_. She's aware he doesn't know what's going down in T.C., but still, that someone could be in good spirits after what she'd just witnessed…what _Alec_ had just witnessed…

"No," she answers. "He won't want to know. And I'm definitely not going to tell him."

"Why?" Logan inquires in disbelief. "Max, I just found the whole _reason_ for why Dean and Alec look identical, and now you're saying you're not going to tell him? What'd I even do that for then?"

Max takes a deep breath in through her nose, anger rising through her sadness. "Don't you yell at me," she seethes. "You have no idea what we've been through the last few days. What's going on. Things just got a fuckload more complicated, and I really can't talk to you right now, Logan."

Logan's quiet for a couple seconds, surprised at Max's outburst. "Sorry," he says defensively. "Care to tell me what the hell's happened?"

Max sighs. "Look," she says, neither ready nor wanting to talk about it, "just—don't call here, okay? I can't see you for a while, not with what's…with everything. T.C. needs me." She takes a beat, looking at Dean and Alec, then adds, "_Alec_ needs me."

"_Alec_?" Logan gapes. "But…but I thought…"

"It's a long story, but Kali's being taken to the hospital. Dr. Carr's going to need to look her over," Max informs. She knows what Logan was about to say—that he'd thought they were going to rekindle whatever it was they had before. But honestly, romance is the last thing on her mind right now, and even if it weren't…well, she's not sure she'd even want to go down that road again anyway.

"_What happened_?" Logan asks again, grasping at the very few threads of information Max had dropped.

"Goodbye, Logan," Max says, and hangs up before he can express any more objections.

She meets Mole's eyes from where he stands a few feet away, chewing so hard on his cigar it's almost breaking in half, neither knowing what they're supposed to do. He nods at her in both deference and condolence, and she returns it in kind.

With heavy gait, she walks back over to Alec, kneeling down next to him and placing a hand on Dean's arm, his skin not yet cold. Alec looks at her, and she tries not to think of how _godawfully wrong_ it is to see him broken like this.

She says nothing, just sits by her second-in-command in silence, her head a mess, wondering if either of them would ever be the same, wishing that Dean had never come into their lives, and cursing him that he left. He'd rid them of a demon that she's sure would have slaughtered them all if she could, he'd gotten White off their tails—for now—but he'd also wormed his way into their lives, and though he wasn't exactly a Rachel for Alec, Max knows Alec grew to consider him almost like a brother.

She knows from personal experience how painful it is to lose a sibling, whether that sibling is by blood or not, and as much as she often wants to strangle Alec, she wishes beyond everything that he didn't have to endure what she had. No one, she thinks, especially her pain-in-the-ass partner, deserves that.


	39. Chapter XXXVIII: Epilogue

A/N: Same stuff applies as in the first chapter. Oh, and unfortunately I neither own _Supernatural_ nor _Dark Angel_. Just this.

A/N part two: Specific episodes of _Supernatural_ mentioned are: a line from "Pilot"/"All Hell Breaks Loose, Part II." Specific episodes of _Dark Angel_ mentioned are: none. Also, I've done a small alteration to the end reference; you'll know it when you see it.

* * *

**Of Desire and the Status Quo**

_**Epilogue – Stairway to Heaven

* * *

**_

Alec stares down at Dean's calm face, the lines accentuating his features softer than they had been just two hours ago. As if only in death is he able to be at peace. If only Alec had the same luxury.

Swallowing, Alec's mouth twitches as he pulls the sheet Rade had sacrificed from her medical supplies up over Dean's head. He stands back, holding his lighter in his hand like a lifeline. His nose burns at the tangy smell of gasoline in the air, and the grains of salt decorating the wood that used to be chairs seem out of place.

He looks across the pyre, meeting Mole, Rade, Dix, and Dalton's eyes, the former two the only ones who haven't some debilitating injury. Dix is in a makeshift wheelchair, and Dalton's leg is in a splint of sorts, his face in a constant wince despite the painkillers Rade had given him. He looks years and years older than his sixteen, and Alec wishes he hadn't had to go through all this. He wishes _none_ of them had.

Gazing at Dean's covered body, he closes his eyes for a minute, futilely hoping that when he opens them again, the pyre will be gone, Dean will be standing with a long-suffering smile on his face, Sam next to him, both alive, both content, more or less. But when he does, none of it is there. Just the harsh reality of Seattle's oppressing gray clouds swollen with unshed rain, the smell of muck and pain in the air overpowering.

His chest in a permanent state of sharp throbbing, Alec flicks open the lighter, slides his thumb down rapidly on the starter, the spark igniting a flame. He looks at it for a second, and then tosses it onto the pyre, the fuel alighting immediately with a thick _whoosh_. The air above Dean ripples, heat caressing Alec's skin as it consumes Dean's body.

The sight in front of him starts to blur, but he blames it on the smoke and the fire. He feels a hand slip into his, small but steady, and he doesn't have to look at it to know it's Max's. He feels himself tightening his fingers around hers, and then a warm heat presses against his side. This time he does look down, and sees her face stoic but eyes glassy with silent tears. He feels an unexpected surge of anger at Dean, at the fact that he'd been the only thing to cause Max, Terminal City's unshakable leader, to outwardly show weakness.

He takes a deep breath and pulls his gaze back up, the inferno completely surrounding Dean's shape. Alec knows it's what Dean wanted, a hunter's funeral, but still he hates that he has to. The keys of the Impala feel heavy in his jacket pocket, they, their vehicle, and the memories branded in his head the only reminders that Dean had ever existed, had ever come into their lives.

Alec doesn't know how long it takes for the flames to die down, for nothing but the scent of burnt flesh in the air to be left of Dean, but he does peripherally notice that the sky had turned from sunset to a blue-black, stars halfheartedly winking from above. He sees that most of the transgenics have left, Dalton and Dix having gone inside to rest their respective injuries. Everyone else hadn't known Dean all that much, some didn't even know his name, and had only been there out of respect for Alec. Trinity, he knows, is still battling catatonia in the medical bay, and last he'd heard of Kalinda, she was being checked over by Dr. Carr. He still doesn't know the prognosis.

Only Mole and Rade remain, still standing on the other side of the pyre; Rade had dropped a tear or two of her own, and while Mole looks unaffected, he'd forgone his cigar and shotgun in his kind of reverence.

Max takes a step away from Alec and glances up at him, face showing more vulnerability than Alec's ever seen. "What now?" she asks softly, her voice coarse and strained.

Alec studies her briefly, and then pulls out Dean's ivory-gripped pistol from his jacket. He stares at the engravings, and then at the fence, beyond the fence, to where he knows the military is waiting. Where White, despite Dean's threat, is undoubtedly scheming.

He looks at Max again, and hands her the firearm, grip first. She doesn't take it, stares at him like he's nuts—he knows she hates guns, she knows he knows she hates guns. Just the same, he slowly releases her hand from his, wraps it around the butt of the pistol. It hangs loosely in her fingers, unwanted.

His eyes stony jade, Max can't help but think he looks too much like Dean the hardened, revenge-driven hunter than he should. Voice matching his stare, he says coldly, "We got work to do."

* * *

_**If you listen very hard  
The tune will come to you at last  
When all are one and one is all****  
To be a rock and not to roll**_

_**And he's earned his stairway to Heaven…**_


End file.
